“How despicably I have acted!”she cried;“I,who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities!who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust! How humiliating is this discovery!Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love,I could not have been more wretchedly blind! But vanity,not love,has been my folly.Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance,I have courted prepossession and ignorance,and driven reason away,where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself.”
She was immediately told that the two gentlemen from Rosings had each called during her absence;Mr.Darcy,only for a few minutes, to take leave―but that Colonel Fitzwilliam had been sitting with them at least an hour, hoping for her return, and almost resolving to walk after her till she could be found. Elizabeth could but just affect concern in missing him;she really rejoiced at it. Colonel Fitzwilliam was no longer an object; she could think only of her letter.