“And your assurance of it,I suppose,carried immediate conviction to him.”
“It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had prevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but his reliance on mine made every thing easy. I was obliged to confess one thing,which for a time,and not unjustly, offended him.I could not allow myself to conceal that your sister had been in town three months last winter,that I had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was angry. But his anger, I am persuaded,lasted no longer than he remained in any doubt of your sister's sentiments.He has heartily forgiven me now.”
Elizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his friend.
She expressed her gratitude again, but it was too painful a subject to each,to be dwelt on farther.
“Did you speak from your own observation,”said she,“when you told him that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?”
“That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much.”And though he exclaimed at the term,she found that it had been pretty much the case.
“No indeed;I felt nothing but surprise.”