Pride and Prejudice

by Jane Austen

He was directly invited to join their party, but he declined it, observing that he could imagine but two motives for their choosing to walk up and down the room together, with either of which motives his joining them would interfere. "What could he mean? She was dying to know what could be his meaning?"--and asked Elizabeth whether she could at all understand him? "Not at all," was her answer; "but depend upon it, he means to be severe on us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing about it." Miss Bingley, however, was incapable of disappointing Mr. Darcy in anything, and persevered therefore in requiring an explanation of his two motives. "I have not the smallest objection to explaining them," said he, as soon as she allowed him to speak. "You either choose this method of passing the evening because you are in each other's confidence, and have secret affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking; if the first, I would be completely in your way, and if the second, I can admire you much better as I sit by the fire."

Jane Austen can be so saucy, and I have long believed that you can tell who her own favourite characters are (give it up for Mary Crawford from MANSFIELD PARK!) by the degree of sauciness she accords them. I adore Mr. Darcy’s response here to Caroline Bingley, because it illustrates two hugely important plot wheels in motion: Darcy’s inability to control his physical attraction to Elizabeth, and the type of subtle flirtation that Darcy, in his arrogance, thinks must be crystal-clear to Elizabeth. He thinks she must be watching him as closely as he knows he is watching her. That both high comedy and high romance will result from his critical misunderstanding of what is going on between them, is the particular alchemy that I think makes Pride and Prejudice one of the most enjoyable books ever written.