Kitty, who had been wavering between two ribbons, looked from one to the other with interest, but did not interfere.
Jane spoke gently. “Perhaps another time, Lydia.”
“Another time!” Lydia repeated. “There will be nothing left worth having.”
Elizabeth smiled slightly. “Then you must be content with what you have already chosen.”
Lydia turned away with a sigh of exaggerated suffering.
It was at this moment that Elizabeth became aware of Darcy’s presence.
He had remained near the entrance, his attention fixed – not on the display, but on her.
She coloured slightly. “Mr. Darcy, I did not see you.”
“I had the advantage of seeingyou,” he returned.
Elizabeth closed her purse. “You arrive at a moment of great consequence.”
“I perceive it.” A faint smile touched his expression. “I had not understood before,” he added, “that such decisions required so much deliberation.”
“They require more,” she said, “when one has not the means to indulge every preference.”
Darcy’s gaze rested on her a moment longer.
“I think,” he said quietly, “that you manage it very well.”
Elizabeth met his look – surprised, though not displeased. “You give me more credit than I deserve.”
“I do not think so.”
A brief pause followed, during which Lydia’s dissatisfaction, though less loudly expressed, was by no means extinguished.
Darcy turned, at length, toward the others. “You appear,” he said, with composed ease, “to be engaged in a matter not easily concluded.”
“We cannot decide,” Lydia returned at once. “Or rather…” she cast a look at Elizabeth, “we are not permitted to decide.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “You mistake the case entirely.”
Darcy regarded them, then said, as if the matter admitted of a very simple solution, “Allow me to remove the difficulty. You may each have what you like.”
There was a moment of astonished silence.
Lydia’s eyes brightened at once. “Indeed?”
Elizabeth turned to him immediately. “No, indeed, Mr. Darcy…you must not…”
“I see no objection.”
“I do,” she returned, with firmness. “A very decided one.”
He met her look, though not entirely unmoved. “Would you deny me the pleasure of removing so small a difficulty? I cannot like to see you obliged to deny yourself.”
Elizabeth hesitated. “You make too much of a very small inconvenience.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. Because you place me in your debt.”
