“Indeed I had.What will you think of my vanity?I believed you to be wishing,expecting my addresses.”
She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her former prejudices had been removed.
“Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?”
“The letter shall certainly be burnt,if you believe it essential to the preservation of my regard;but,though we have both reason to think my opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope,quite so easily changed as that implies.”
“I can easily believe it.You thought me then devoid of every proper feeling,I am sure you did.The turn of your countenance I shall never forget,as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible way that would induce you to accept me.”
“When I wrote that letter,”replied Darcy,“I believed myself perfectly calm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was written in a dreadful bitterness of spirit.”