We went out on to the floor. There were looks of amazement all around us, though I am sure I do not know why.

I might not have chosen to dance at the assembly, but that is a very different situation from a private ball.

I tried to think of something to say, but I found that I was speechless. It surprised me. I have never been at a loss before. To be sure, I do not always find it easy to talk to those I do not know very well, but I can generally think of at least a pleasantry. I believe the hostility I felt coming from Elizabeth robbed me of my sense.

At last she said: ‘This is an agreeable dance.’

Coming from a woman whose wit and liveliness delight me, it was a dry remark, and I made no reply.

After a few minutes, she said: ‘It is your turn to say something now, Mr Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.’

This was more like Elizabeth.

‘I will say whatever you wish me to say,’ I returned.

‘Very well. That reply will do for the present. Perhaps by and by I may observe that private balls are much pleasanter than public ones. But now we may be silent.’

‘Do you talk by rule then, while you are dancing?’ I asked.

‘Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know, and yet for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.’

‘Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine?’

‘Both,’ she replied archly.

I could not help smiling. It is that archness that draws me. It is provocative without being impertinent, and I have never come across it in any woman before. She lifts her face in just such a way when she makes one of her playful comments that I am seized with an overwhelming urge to kiss her. Not that I would give in to such an impulse, but it is there all the same.

‘I have always seen a great similarity in the turn of our minds,’ she went on. ‘We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb.’

I was uneasy, not sure whether to laugh or feel concerned. If it was part of her playfulness, then I found it amusing, but if she thought it was the truth? Had I been so taciturn when I had been with her? I thought back to the Meryton assembly, and the early days at Netherfield.

I had perhaps not set out to charm her, but then I never did. I had, perhaps, been abrupt to begin with, but I thought I had repaired matters towards the end of her stay at Netherfield. Until the last day. I remembered my silence, and my determination not to speak to her. I remembered congratulating myself on not saying more than ten words to her, and remaining determinedly silent when I was left alone with her for half an hour, pretending to be absorbed in my book.

I had been right to remain silent, I thought. Then immediately afterwards I thought I had been wrong. I had been both right and wrong: right if I wished to crush any expectations that might have arisen during the course of her visit, but wrong if I wished to win her favour, or to be polite. I am not used to being so confused. I never was, before I met Elizabeth.

I became aware of the fact that again I was silent, and I knew I must say something if I was not to confirm her in the suspicion that I was deliberately taciturn.

‘This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure,’ I said, my uneasiness reflected in my tone of voice, for I did not know whether to be amused or hurt. ‘How near it may be to mine, I cannot pretend to say. You think it a faithful portrait, undoubtedly.’

‘I must not decide on my own performance.’

We lapsed into an uneasy silence. Did she judge me?

Did she despise me? Or was she playing with me? I could not decide.

At length, I spoke to her about her trip to Meryton, and she replied that she and her sisters had made a new acquaintance there.

I froze. I knew whom she meant. Wickham! And the way she spoke of him! Not with contempt, but with liking. I feared she meant to go on, but something in my manner must have kept her silent.

I knew I should ignore the matter. I did not have to explain myself to her. And yet I found myself saying: ‘Mr Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his making friends. Whether he may be equally capable of retaining them is less certain.’

‘He has been so unlucky as to lose your friendship, and in a manner which he is likely to suffer from all his life.’

What has he said to her? What has he told her? I longed to tell her the truth of the matter, but I could not do so for fear of hurting Georgiana.

Once more a silence fell. We were rescued from it by Sir William Lucas who let slip a remark that drove Wickham out of my mind. For that, at least, I must thank him.

He complimented us on our dancing, and then, glancing at Miss Bennet and Bingley, he said he hoped to have the pleasure of seeing it often repeated when a certain desirable event took place.

I was startled. But there could be no mistaking his meaning. He thought it possible, nay certain, that Miss Bennet and Bingley would wed. I watched them dancing, but I could see nothing in the demeanour of either to lead to this conclusion. Yet if it was being talked of then I knew the matter was serious. I could not let Bingley jeopardize a woman’s reputation, no matter how agreeable his flirtation. Recovering myself, I asked Elizabeth what we had been talking about.

She replied, ‘Nothing at all.’

I began to talk to her of books. She would not admit that we might share the same tastes, so I declared that then, at least, we would have something to talk about.

She claimed she could not talk of books in a ballroom, but I thought that was not what was troubling her. The trouble was that her mind was elsewhere.

Suddenly she said to me, ‘I remember hearing you once say, Mr Darcy, that you hardly ever forgave, that your resentment once created was unappeasable. You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its being created?’

Was she thinking of Wickham? Had he told her of the coldness between us? She seemed genuinely anxious to hear my answer, and I reassured her.

‘I am,’ I said firmly.

More questions followed, until I asked where these questions tended.

‘Merely to the illustration of your character,’ said she, trying to shake off her gravity. ‘I am trying to make it out.’

Then she was not thinking of Wickham. I was grateful.

‘And what is your success?’ I could not help asking.

She shook her head. ‘I do not get on at all. I hear such different accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly.’

‘I can readily believe it,’ I said, thinking with a sinking feeling of Wickham. I added on impulse, ‘I could wish that you were not to sketch my character at the present moment, as there is reason to fear that the performance would reflect no credit on either.’

‘But if I do not take your likeness now, I may never have another opportunity.’

I had begged for clemency. I would not beg again. I replied coldly, stiffly: ‘I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours.’

We finished the dance as we had begun it, in silence.

But I could not be angry with her for long. She had been told something by George Wickham, that much was clear, and as he was incapable of telling the truth, she had no doubt been subjected to a host of lies. As we left the floor, I had forgiven Elizabeth, and turned my anger towards Wickham instead.

What had he told her? I wondered. And how far had it damaged me in her esteem?

I was saved from these unsettling reflections by the sight of a heavy young man bowing in front of me and begging me to forgive him for introducing himself. I was about to turn away when I remembered having seen him with Elizabeth, and I found myself curious as to what he might have to say.

‘It is not amongst the established forms of ceremony amongst the laity to introduce themselves, I am well aware, but I flatter myself that the rules governing the clergy are quite different, indeed I consider the clerical office as equal in point of dignity with the highest rank in the kingdom, and so I have come to introduce myself to you, an introduction which, I am persuaded, will not be deemed impertinent when you learn that my noble benefactor, the lady who has graciously bestowed on me a munificent living, is none other than your estimable aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. It was she who preferred me to the valuable rectory of Hunsford, where it is my duty, nay my pleasure, to perform the ceremonies that must, by their very nature, devolve upon the incumbent,’ he assured me with an obsequious smile.

I looked at him in astonishment, wondering if he could be quite sane. It seemed that he did indeed believe a clergyman to be the equal of the King of England, though not of my aunt, for his speech was littered with effusions of gratitude and praise of her nobility and condescension. I found him an oddity; but my aunt, however, had evidently found him worthy of the living, and as she knew him far better than I did I could only suppose he had virtues I knew nothing of.

‘I am certain my aunt could never bestow a favour unworthily,’ I said politely, but with enough coldness to prevent him saying anything further. He was not deterred, however, and began a second speech which was even lengthier and more involved than the first. As he opened his mouth to draw breath, I made him a bow and walked away. Absurdity has its place, but I was not in the mood to be diverted by it, so soon after quitting Elizabeth.