Darcy glanced in the indicated direction.
The young woman in question was seated beside Miss Lucas, Sir William Lucas's daughter, who had been kind enough to facilitate several introductions earlier in the evening.
She was not the beauty her elder sister was.
Yet there was something in her manner that arrested his attention.
She sat with an easy, unaffected composure, her dark eyes moving about the room with an attention that struck him as unusually exact. She was not merely observing the dancers. She appeared to be observing everything. Every countenance, every gesture, every exchange. She took it all in with a quiet thoroughness that stirred a faint sense of recognition, though he could not immediately have said why.
"She is tolerable, I suppose," he said, still looking at her, "but not handsome enough to tempt me. And I am in no humour this evening to give consequence to young ladies neglected by other men."
Bingley shook his head.
"You are impossible."
"I am tired. There is a distinction."
Bingley appeared inclined to argue further, then wisely abandoned the effort and returned to his partner.
Darcy turned back to the room.
And found Miss Elizabeth Bennet looking directly at him.
There was a curious amusement about her expression.
Then, as he watched, her lips moved.
Not in conversation. There was no one beside her now. Miss Lucas had been claimed for the next set. She sat alone. She was repeating something.
Silently.
Carefully.
Not handsome enough to tempt me.
The words shaped themselves on her lips with a precision that left no room for mistake. She had heard him. Or rather — she had not heard him. She had watched him. She had read his lips from across a crowded assembly room, in candlelight, above the noise of an orchestra and fifty conversations, and she had caught every word.
A chill froze Darcy in place. The glass paused halfway to his mouth.
The only person he had ever known capable of such a thing was his mother.
Miss Elizabeth held his gaze for one moment longer.
Then the corner of her mouth lifted, ever so slightly, and she looked away, back to the dancers, back to her quiet observations, as though nothing of consequence had occurred.
Darcy stood very still.
Across the room, Bingley was laughing at something Miss Bennet had said, while Miss Bingley watched them both with poorly concealed dissatisfaction. The musicians had embarked upon another reel. The evening proceeded exactly as it had a moment before.
Darcy was no longer attending to any of it.
He looked again at Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
She did not return the glance.
She sat with her hands lightly clasped before her and watched the room with that same composed attention, giving little away, asking nothing of anyone, entirely self-possessed amidst the noise and scrutiny surrounding her.
His mother had sat exactly so.
