Mr. Darcy looked a little ashamed of his aunt’s ill-breeding, and made

no answer.
When coffee was over, Colonel Fitzwilliam reminded Elizabeth of having

promised to play to him; and she sat down directly to the instrument. He

drew a chair near her. Lady Catherine listened to half a song, and then

talked, as before, to her other nephew; till the latter walked away from

her, and moving with his usual deliberation towards the pianoforte,

stationed himself so{218} as to command a full view of the fair performer’s

countenance. Elizabeth saw what he was doing, and at the first

convenient pause turned to him with an arch smile, and said,—
“You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear

me. But I will not be alarmed, though your sister does play so well.

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at

the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to

intimidate me.”
“I shall not say that you are mistaken,” he replied, “because you could

not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I

have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know, that you

find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which, in fact,

are not your own.”
Elizabeth laughed heartily at this picture of herself, and said to

Colonel Fitzwilliam, “Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of

me, and teach you not to believe a word I say. I am particularly unlucky

in meeting with a person so well able to expose my real character, in a

part of the world where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree

of credit. Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention

all that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire—and, give me

leave to say, very impolitic too—for it is provoking me to retaliate,

and such things may come out as will shock your relations to hear.”
“I am not afraid of you,” said he, smilingly.