“Yes,”replied Darcy,who could contain himself no longer,“but that was only when I first saw her, for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.”
He then went away, and Miss Bingley was left to all the satisfaction of having forced him to say what gave no one any pain but herself.
“How very ill Miss Eliza Bennet looks this morning,Mr.Darcy,”she cried;“I never in my life saw anyone so much altered as she is since the winter.She is grown so brown and coarse!Louisa and I were agreeing that we should not have known her again.”
Elizabeth's collected behaviour, however, soon quieted his emotion;and as Miss Bingley,vexed and disappointed,dared not approach nearer to Wickham,Georgiana also recovered in time, though not enough to be able to speak any more. Her brother, whose eye she feared to meet,scarcely recollected her interest in the affair,and the very circumstance which had been designed to turn his thoughts from Elizabeth seemed to have fixed them on her more and more cheerfully.
Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth talked of all that had occurred during their visit,as they returned,except what had particularly interested them both.The look and behaviour of everybody they had seen were discussed, except of the person who had mostly engaged their attention.They talked of his sister, his friends, his house, his fruit―of everything but himself; yet Elizabeth was longing to know what Mrs. Gardiner thought of him, and Mrs. Gardiner would have been highly gratified by her niece's beginning the subject.