"You think I would make light of it."
"No," she said quickly, and then wished she had not.
"Then what do you think?"
Elizabeth drew a breath and found, to her irritation, that she did not know how to answer plainly. She thought his conduct had been improper. She thought her own had been no better. She thought he had no right, and yet she had not wished him to stop.
"I think," she said at last, "that you are a gentleman, and I am a gentleman’s daughter, and there are expectations attached to both conditions which neither of us observed very well yesterday."
He looked away then, and the movement unsettled her.
"You are right," he said.
She had not expected agreement.
"I behaved without sufficient thought for your position," he continued. "That is inexcusable."
"I would not say entirely without thought," she said before she could stop herself.
He looked back at her and heat rose at once to her face.
"I mean only," she went on, with as much composure as she could gather, "that you had already apologised very handsomely, and I had been engaged in a most stubborn struggle with my bonnet ribbon, and the hall was extremely narrow."
"The narrowness of the hall is not a defence I had considered."
She coloured and walked on briskly.
They rejoined the others at a bend in the path where the view opened suddenly, the sea stretching wide and blue beneath the morning light.
Jane exclaimed softly. Bingley agreed with enthusiasm. Georgiana listened while Mrs Bennet pointed out some small detail of the landscape with quiet interest.
Elizabeth stood a little apart and Darcy did the same.
Mrs Bennet, however, observed both of them with a steadiness that made Elizabeth uneasy.
"Lizzy," she said presently, "walk with me a little."
Elizabeth obeyed. They moved a short distance away, far enough for privacy but not for secrecy.
"You are very quiet this morning," Mrs Bennet said.
"I am often quiet."
Mrs Bennet gave her a look.
"No," Elizabeth admitted. "I suppose I am not."
They walked a little farther.
"Mr Darcy is also quiet," Mrs Bennet said.
"Mr Darcy is always quiet."
"Not in the same way."
Elizabeth glanced at her sharply, but Mrs Bennet was looking out to sea.
"I am not asking for your confidence," she went on. "I know very well you do not like to be pressed. I have enough experience of you, my dear, to know that."
