“You need not distress yourself.The moral will be perfectly fair. Lady Catherine's unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of removing all my doubts. I am not indebted for my present happiness to your eager desire of expressing your gratitude.I was not in a humour to wait for any opening of yours. My aunt's intelligence had given me hope,and I was determined at once to know every thing.”
“Because you were grave and silent,and gave me no encouragement.”
“I cannot fix on the hour,or the spot,or the look,or the words, which laid the foundation.It is too long ago.I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
“My real purpose was to see you, and to judge, if I could, whether I might ever hope to make you love me.My avowed one, or what I avowed to myself,was to see whether your sister were still partial to Bingley,and if she were,to make the confession to him which I have since made.”
“And if I had not a letter to write myself,I might sit by you and admire the evenness of your writing,as another young lady once did.But I have an aunt,too,who must not be longer neglected.”
“I am more likely to want more time than courage,Elizabeth. But it ought to be done,and if you will give me a sheet of paper,it shall be done directly.”
Elizabeth's spirits soon rising to playfulness again,she wanted Mr.Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her.“How could you begin?”said she.“I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first place?”