“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.”
“My manners must have been in fault,but not intentionally,I assure you.I never meant to deceive you,but my spirits might often lead me wrong.How you must have hated me after that evening?”
“Indeed I had.What will you think of my vanity?I believed you to be wishing,expecting my addresses.”
“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.”
“Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?”
“I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an impression.I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a way.”
“I knew,”said he,“that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter.There was one part especially,the opening of it,which I should dread your having the power of reading again. I can remember some expressions which might justly make you hate me.”