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But she had congratulated Miss Bennet.

A fortnight ago, she would have reeled off a half-dozen reasons why the engagement was a mistake, and at least one reason it ought to be delayed until her brother came to his senses. She did not seem overly pleased about the match, but she was no longer offering any obstruction to it. Perhaps the time she had spent here in Gracechurch Street had helped her to see things differently. Darcy knew it had helped him.

Miss Bingley set down her glass. “Miss Bennet.”

Miss Bennet turned from Bingley with some difficulty.

“My brother will agree with whoever has spoken to him last and be perfectly sincere about each agreement. You will wish to be the last person rather often.”

Darcy pressed his lips together. Bingley just laughed.

“Thank you,” Miss Bennet said. “I shall remember it.”

“You need not worry,” Bingley assured her. “You will be my wife, which rather changes things.”

Bingley and Miss Bennet sat at a proper distance from one another under the gimlet eye of Mr. Gardiner, but they were doing a poor job of concealing their happiness. Even when Mr. Gardiner addressed Bingley directly, Bingley looked first towards Miss Bennet before answering.

Darcy gazed at Miss Elizabeth.

She was laughing at something her aunt had said and she patted her aunt’s hand as she did.

The Bennet family had not changed because he had spent a fortnight in Gracechurch Street. But the Gardiners were not what he had assumed they would be. In fact, he respected Mr. Gardiner’s judgement and admired Mrs. Gardiner’s composure. Their children had ceased to seem noisy interruptions and had become individuals whose arguments, questions, and occasional disasters were of interest to him. He would even like to introduce Georgiana to the family when she returned to town.

Since Hertfordshire, he had treated his attachment to Miss Elizabeth as something he ought to fight against. His aunt’s letter reminded him why he had. But he no longer wished to. What he would say to his uncle and aunt about the rest of the Bennets he had not yet determined.

“Mr. Darcy?” Master Edward stood before him, holding a sheet of paper.

“Yes?”

“I have made a map.” He thrust it at Darcy, who accepted it.

The drawing appeared to contain three roads, two rivers, and a large, somewhat circular object in the middle which might have been London or a lake.

“Of where?”

Edward frowned. “England.”

Darcy squinted and turned the paper around in his hands.

“Oh,” he said. “I see.”

The boy put his hands on his hips. “You do not.”

It was a little humbling to be called to account by a six-year-old. “No,” he agreed. “I do not.”

Miss Elizabeth smiled at him from her place behind Master Edward.

Darcy examined the paper more closely. “Perhaps you simply need to explain it to me.”

Master Edward was pleased to do so. At length. By the time he had established the approximate locations of London, Hertfordshire, Derbyshire, and, for some reason, Cornwall, Master Henry had joined them and offered a strenuous objection because Pemberley had not been included.

“You have never been there,” Master Edward said.

“But I know Mr. Darcy.”

“That does not mean you know his house.”

Master Henry appealed to Darcy. “Is your house big?”