“Shall you ever have courage to announce to Lady Catherine what is to befall her?”
“How unlucky that you should have a reasonable answer to give, and that I should be so reasonable as to admit it!But I wonder how long you would have gone on,if you had been left to yourself. I wonder when you would have spoken, if I had not asked you! My resolution of thanking you for your kindness to Lydia had certainly great effect.Too much,I am afraid;for what becomes of the moral,if our comfort springs from a breach of promise?for I ought not to have mentioned the subject.This will never do.”
“Yours sincerely,etc.”
“I must trouble you once more for congratulations. Elizabeth will soon be the wife of Mr. Darcy. Console Lady Catherine as well as you can.But,if I were you,I would stand by the nephew. He has more to give.
“For the liveliness of your mind,I did.”
“But I was embarrassed.”
“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.”
“A man who had felt less,might.”
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?”