“What did you say of me,that I did not deserve?For,though your accusations were ill-founded,formed on mistaken premises, my behaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was unpardonable.I cannot think of it without abhorrence.”
“I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself.The recollection of what I then said,of my conduct,my manners,my expressions during the whole of it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me.Your reproof,so well applied,I shall never forget:'had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.' Those were your words.You know not,you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me;―though it was some time,I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice.”
They walked on, without knowing in what direction.There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects. She soon learnt that they were indebted for their present good understanding to the efforts of his aunt,who did call on him in her return through London, and there relate her journey to Longbourn, its motive, and the substance of her conversation with Elizabeth;dwelling emphatically on every expression of the latter which, in her ladyship's apprehension, peculiarly denoted her perverseness and assurance; in the belief that such a relation must assist her endeavours to obtain that promise from her nephew which she had refused to give.But,unluckily for her ladyship,its effect had been exactly contrariwise.