“I am better,” he objected silently.
“I beg to differ.”
He frowned and wrote,
Am I not sitting upright, conscious, and conversing?
“Barely.” He must have reacted in some way for she winced sympathetically and made a placating gesture. “That is, you are certainly improving, but I would not say you are your usual self.”
Darcy pulled a face of ambivalence. “I am not sure I have ever been more at liberty to be myself.” What was it that Elizabeththought was different? And why was he now the object of such an intense look? “What is it?” he mouthed.
“Do you honestly like Miss Bingley?”
“Pardon?”
“You said the other day that she was not as awful as I thought. Do youtrulythink well of her?”
“I do, yes.”
“May I ask why?”
Fighting to repress the smile of triumph tugging at his lips, Darcy wrote,
May I enquire why it troubles you so much that I should?
“Because I cannot believe you actually enjoy her officious attention. I think I have discovered enough about your character to know you do not like to be so assiduously courted, yet you claim to esteem Miss Bingley, who I never saw do anything but speak and look and think for your approbation alone. I cannot account for it.”
Darcy’s complacency vanished. He ought to have known better than to think Elizabeth would be jealous of any woman—she must know she had no cause. No, it washischaracter she wished him to account for. Again.
I do not hold her in high regard because she fawns over me. I esteem her because she is refined.
Elizabeth screwed up her nose. “That is an absurd reason to admire someone. You can like a personmorefor being refined, but you ought not to like them simply because of it, else you would like every well-dressed criminal in the country.”
You asked me to justify my regard, and I have. Refinement is a quality I admire, whether or not you agree that I should.
“That is fair,” she conceded with a modest smile and slight inclination of her head. “It is certainly not my intention to talk down Miss Bingley’s merits. She has them, I am sure, and if you admire them, then that is all to the good. I only wished to establish whether your admiration was borne of vanity.”
Are you convinced it is not?
After a brief pause and another searching look, she replied, “Yes.” She almost sounded surprised, making Darcy uneasy.
It was no falsehood when you told Bingley you were a studier of character, was it? I have been questioned to within an inch of my life this past week.
She looked abashed and a little hurt, which had not been his intention, and he hastened to add,
By which I mean, I think it must be my turn.
“Do your worst, sir. I am not afraid of you.”
Darcy fixed his gaze on her. “You are not afraid of anything.”
He watched her watch his mouth as he said this but could not tell from her expression what she thought of it. She only lifted her eyes back to his and enquired, “What do you wish to know?”
He wished to knoweverythingbut thought it easiest to continue in the same vein in which they had already begun.
I know which traits you disdain—you have made certain I know your opinion of such vices as vanity, pride, and resentment. Pray tell me, which qualities do you admire?
Her head came up, and she answered, “Integrity,” without hesitation, and something in the way she held his gaze made him feel no less under scrutiny than when she had been the one asking questions.
