Darcy immediately went forward to meet her.
“Good morning, Miss Bennet. I must thank you for indulging my request for this interview before my departure.”
“My father informed me that you wished to speak with me, Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth replied with gentleness, though not entirely without reserve. “I understand business now calls you suddenly back to Derbyshire.”
“For a few days only, I hope. I should not otherwise have chosen to leave Hertfordshire at present.”
Something in the quiet earnestness with which he spoke these last words prevented her from treating them merely as common civility.
“And does Mr. Bingley submit patiently to being abandoned almost immediately after establishing himself at Netherfield?” she asked, endeavouring with partial success to restore a lighter tone.
“I believe Bingley already considers himself sufficiently attached to Hertfordshire to support a temporary separation from his earliest Hertfordshire connections.”
“Then the county has secured his affections with remarkable rapidity.”
“I think,” Darcy answered, looking at her with a steadiness no longer entirely guarded, “that some attachments may be formed more rapidly than prudence would generally recommend.”
Elizabeth felt the colour in her cheeks deepen slightly at this; yet unwilling to surrender too quickly the safer ground of playful conversation, she answered:
“You should be profoundly grateful that I begin with the most serious of my prejudices; I was once very ready to believe your caution regarding Mr. Wickham was merely the consequence of an overbearing pride. I thought you took a natural pleasure in disapproving of the entire world, never dreaming that yoursilence was born of a much more honourable concern for those you love.”
Darcy remained silent for several moments, and when he finally spoke, the last traces of his defensive reserve seemed to have vanished entirely.
“Remarcable candor, Miss Bennet. I like people that openly share they thoughts, even if there are not completely in their favor. In my defence, it was a concern I felt bound to honour, even at the cost of my own reputation in your eyes.”
Elizabeth felt a surge of warmth at his honesty, but she could not resist the urge to tease him further.
“I must confess, sir, that when I heard from my father you had appeared at the Hunsford inn during such unfavourable weather, I imagined every possible motive except the correct one. I thought you merely possessed of an excessive curiosity concerning the dullness of my society, never suspecting you had travelled so far merely to determine whether I was soon to become the next Mrs. Collins.”
Darcy stopped walking entirely, turning to face her with a look of such earnest intensity that Elizabeth felt her breath catch in her throat.
“You were not mistaken in supposing I had a particular motive for being there, Miss Elizabeth.”
“And the true motive, Mr. Darcy?”
“I wished very much to know if such an unfortunate engagement existed,” Mr. Darcy said, his voice steady despite the gravity of his admission, “for I found that I was not sufficiently indifferent to your future happiness to remain in London and merely wonder at your fate.”
His seriousness removed all possibility of jest.
Elizabeth felt the tell-tale colour rise in her cheeks, but she met his gaze with sparkling defiance.
“Mr. Collins would be deeply flattered—and perhaps a little terrified—to learn that he once stood as a formidable serious rival to the Master of Pemberley.”
Darcy did not return her smile; and something in the grave sincerity of his expression made further levity impossible.
“I assure you, Miss Bennet, there was very little amusement in the possibility of losing you through my own silence and delay. My chief fear was that I had discovered my own sentiments too late.”
Elizabeth turned her eyes away first, finding the openness with which he now spoke considerably more difficult to endure than the reserve which had once so often provoked her.
“You have a most unfortunate habit, Mr. Darcy, of speaking with such alarming sincerity precisely when you leave no possibility of answering you lightly.”
“And you, Elizabeth,” he replied more quietly, “have a habit of understanding me only after I have exhausted every poorer method of attempting to make myself understood.”
For one brief instant their eyes met without disguise; and in that moment something seemed finally to settle between them which neither wit, misunderstanding, nor pride could now entirely obscure.
Yet Darcy himself appeared the first to recover a more careful composure.
“I do not ask you for any promise before I leave Hertfordshire,” he said after a silence which had become too full of meaning to remain entirely prolonged. “But if, upon my return from Derbyshire, I may still hope to find my presence neither unwelcome nor indifferent to you, I shall think my journey home considerably easier to endure.”
