When Mr. Bingley entered the assembly rooms two evenings later, Meryton had already decided to forgive him for being rich.

It was not a difficult pardon. He came in smiling, bowed as if he had been waiting all his life for the honor of being introduced to Mrs. Long’s nieces, and looked so sincerely pleased with the size, heat, noise, and consequence of the room that half the mothers present began to believe themselves hostesses of the evening. A young man who could be delighted by Meryton was a treasure. A young man with five thousand a year who could be delighted by Meryton was very nearly a public institution.

“Well,” Charlotte Lucas murmured beside Elizabeth, “there is one gentleman in the party who means to be liked.”

“And has chosen the most efficient method. He likes us first.”

“A dangerous generosity. The room will return it with interest.”

Sir William had acquired Mr. Bingley’s hand and was shaking it with the solemn joy of a man receiving a foreign ambassador into his parish. Behind him, Mrs. Bennet strained to catch her eldest daughter’s eye. The effort was wasted upon Jane, whose attention had followed the newcomer from the door and now rested, with an appearance of industry, upon a seam in her glove.

“Amiable,” Elizabeth said.

“Very,” Jane said, abandoning the seam in her glove.

“You have arrived at your judgment quickly.”

“One may judge an agreeable manner upon seeing it.”

“Certainly. I was admiring your economy.”

Jane pressed her lips together. Elizabeth could usually persuade her sister to smile; tonight the trouble seemed to be in preventing it.

Lydia leaned across them. “He has looked this way. Kitty, stand upon my other side. You are hiding my ribbon.”

“I am shorter than you.”

“Then it should be very easy.”

Mrs. Bennet made a place for herself between her daughters and the approaching Sir William. “Jane, my love, you know Lady Lucas. Come forward. Lizzy, you are in the way of your sister’s being introduced.”

Elizabeth yielded Jane to her good fortune and Charlotte to the temporary possession of her father. She had worn her better slippers, mended a rent in her hem, and submitted to Jane’s improvement of her hair. She meant to dance and be pleased. There was no reason the night should belong wholly to Netherfield.

The room had been dressed for the occasion with branches of autumn leaves above the looking-glasses. Heat had curled their edges already. Candlelight trembled in the old glass, multiplying the moving figures until there seemed scarcely room for the musicians, who had taken possession of a raised end and defended it with their elbows. Every opened door admitted a strip of dark passage and cold air; every closed one restored the smell of wax, damp wool, and bodies exercised for pleasure.

Mr. Bingley’s sisters entered behind him in silk that made Elizabeth briefly conscious of the repaired hem. Mr. Hurst followed with an expression suggesting that he had been promised supper upon inadequate evidence. Beside them came the tall gentleman who would soon provide Meryton with its next subject.

Handsome, Elizabeth conceded. His dark hair, fine coat, and grave composure invited a favorable first account.

“Ten thousand a year,” said Mrs. Long, supplying the income before anyone had thought to request it.

“A very great sum,” Charlotte said upon rejoining her.

“We ought to endeavor to like him, then,” Elizabeth said. “It would be wasteful otherwise.”

For a time the room tried. Mr. Darcy danced with Mrs. Hurst. On the second turn, his attention strayed to a group of young ladies being marshaled toward Sir William; his partner had to arrest his hand before he led her the wrong way. He apologized with such gravity that Elizabeth smiled. Mrs. Hurst accepted the apology less warmly than the occasion seemed to require.

Once free of the set, he bowed to people whose names he appeared immediately to discard and withdrew beyond the reach of Sir William’s next introduction. An empty place in a set was offered him. He declined. Mrs. Long’s niece received his attention long enough to hope for more, then was obliged to rearrange her expectations while he looked toward the door.

“Perhaps he is waiting for somebody,” Charlotte said.

“Somebody must be suffering a great responsibility.”

The door opened to admit a late party. Mr. Darcy turned so sharply that Miss Bingley was left addressing his shoulder. He watched the gentlemen remove their gloves, then resumed whatever conversation she had been maintaining for him.

Elizabeth followed the glance. Nothing remarkable had entered: an elderly neighbor, his married daughter, a young man with boots polished beyond his prospects. Mr. Darcy had the advantage of them all in appearance. It seemed a pity he could find no use for it.

Mr. Bingley was suffering from no such difficulty. He danced with Jane and came to claim her again as soon as propriety permitted. At the second request, Mrs. Bennet caught Elizabeth’s arm with a vigor that put the sleeve at risk.

“Again, Lizzy. Did you hear? Lady Lucas must have heard. Jane is the only young lady he has asked again.”

“We must hope she has the strength for it.”

“Do not be ridiculous. Your father will say there is nothing in it, but I shall tell him exactly how it was. I knew he should have come. He would rather sit over a book than see his own daughter admired.”

Jane returned from the set flushed with more than exercise. Her mother began upon the blue ribbons before Mr. Bingley had quite released her hand. Elizabeth waited only long enough for the gentleman to be claimed by Sir William.

“You are very warm,” she said to Jane. “Come nearer the window.”

“I am not warm.”

“No, but I am heroic in invention.”

She drew her sister into the recess beneath a looking-glass. The window sash had swollen in its frame; a wedge of folded paper kept it open, and the cold reached them in a narrow, welcome current.

“Mamma means no harm,” Jane said. “I find I must remind myself of it rather often tonight.”

“I had prepared that defense for you. You might allow me to make it.”

“I make it more kindly than you would. It is one advantage of beginning first.”

Elizabeth looked at her. “You like him.”

“Everybody likes him.”

“Everybody has not just been obliged to escape her mother behind a curtain.”

Jane touched the ribbon at her waist. “He asked whether I preferred the country to London.”

“A perilous question. How did you preserve yourself?”

“I told him the truth.”

“Jane, you must learn caution.”

Her sister smiled, then looked toward the dancers. “I wish Mamma would let us have a conversation before she tells people what it means.”

The admission was so unlike her customary generosity that Elizabeth put aside the next jest.

“I shall keep her occupied.”

“You cannot spend the evening rescuing me.”

“I shall give her my opinion of Mr. Darcy. That ought to furnish occupation enough.”

“Lizzy.”

“Or permit Lydia to choose a ribbon she dislikes. We possess resources.”

Jane laughed. Elizabeth straightened the blue bow her mother had praised and allowed herself to be hopeful. Across the room Mr. Bingley was looking for them. When he found Jane, his whole face altered; Jane answered him before she remembered to compose her own.

Jane was claimed by her next partner. Elizabeth took a chair near Charlotte, intending to rest until she was wanted again. Mr. Bingley crossed the room and stopped beside his friend, close enough that their conversation came clearly between the last notes of the tune and the musicians’ preparations for another.

“Come, Darcy. I hate to see you standing about in this stupid manner. You had much better dance.”

“I certainly shall not.”

Mr. Darcy was examining the entrance over his friend’s shoulder.

“Nobody at that door will rescue you,” Bingley said. “You have left your business at home.”

“I would be obliged to you for allowing it to remain there.”

His friend lowered his voice. “Then give yourself something better to attend to. You cannot stand here all evening making yourself miserable.”

Mr. Darcy turned back. Elizabeth had a clear view of his face now, of the weariness about his eyes and the effort with which he listened. Miss Bingley had said something earlier about a headache. Perhaps he had one. She could have credited any ordinary cause until he spoke again.

“You know how I detest dancing unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner. At such an assembly as this it would be insupportable.”

“I would not be so fastidious as you are for a kingdom. Upon my honor, I never met with so many pleasant girls in my life.”

“You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room.”

Elizabeth looked toward Jane. Praise from this quarter came attended by an inconvenient judgment upon everybody else.

“She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld,” Bingley said. “But there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I dare say very agreeable. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you.”

“Bingley, leave me the choice of my own company.”

“I am only trying to improve it. Look at her before you refuse.”

Mr. Darcy turned.

For one suspended instant, Elizabeth met his eyes. He seemed to come upon her unexpectedly, though his friend had just described precisely where she sat. His attention settled upon her face, dropped to the hand resting on her glove, and returned.

“She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.”

The first violin sounded a bright, testing note. Elizabeth heard it with extraordinary distinctness. Her feet had been ready beneath her chair; she set them back.

Mr. Darcy turned away.

She studied the glove until Charlotte leaned toward her.

“My dear Lizzy—”

“You must remember this evening. He looked at me first, you understand, the whole length of his ten thousand a year, and reached his verdict from the top of it. I am tolerable. There is comfort in the precision.”

“There would be more in his keeping the discovery to himself.”

“Think how many women live in uncertainty. I now know my exact place in the scale of temptation.”

Charlotte’s mouth betrayed her. Elizabeth laughed too, and found that she could bear to look across the room again.

“You are not wounded?”

“Mortally, in my prospects with Mr. Darcy. Fortunately I had invested very little in them.”

Maria Lucas came to ask what amused them. Elizabeth told her. Mrs. Long, still resentful on her niece’s account, drew near enough to acquire the explanation. By the time supper was announced, the story had become good enough to give Elizabeth genuine pleasure in its telling.

Lydia was enchanted.

“Lord, Lizzy, I wish he had said it of me. I should have told him he was not handsome enough to tempt me either.”

“Would that have been true?” Mary asked.

“What has that to do with it? It would have vexed him. Except perhaps he would think I preferred Mr. Bingley, and Jane would be cross. Jane, I do not prefer Mr. Bingley. You may have him.”

“How fortunate that you have settled it,” Elizabeth said, reaching for a glass to give her sister something to do.

“There are officers coming,” Lydia continued. “Aunt Philips says several of them are very handsome, and I should rather have a man in a red coat. One could always find him at an assembly.”

“So could his creditors,” Mary said.

“Mary, you spoil everything.”

“Only your test of a good husband.”

Kitty wanted to know whether officers were obliged to wear their coats at breakfast. Lydia undertook to discover it. Mrs. Bennet, hearing only the subject of husbands, began again upon Jane’s second dance, and Elizabeth escaped with Charlotte toward the cooler edge of the room.

Mr. Darcy stood near the entrance. A servant was speaking to him; he bent his head to hear, then looked toward the door as though he would gladly have followed the man out.

Miss Bingley approached. Before she reached him, he passed a hand over his face with a fatigue so unguarded that Elizabeth stopped smiling. The motion was gone by the time he turned to answer her.

He looked across the room. Their eyes met again.

This time he held her gaze and began to incline his head. Elizabeth kept her chin level. Was she expected to return the courtesy?

She turned to Charlotte before he could finish.

“If Mr. Darcy is determined to despise us, we must do what we can to make his labor easier.”

“How shall we do that?”

“By being very merry, very provincial, and in no way tempted.”

Charlotte waited until a passing couple had gone beyond hearing.

“You have been very merry about him for most of the evening.”

“He has provided the occasion.”

“You need not go on providing the audience.”

Elizabeth opened her fan. One of the sticks caught, and she closed it again with greater care.

“Would you prefer me to weep?”

“I should prefer you to know that you may be hurt without being ridiculous.”

That was an unreasonable thing for a friend to say at an assembly, where there was music enough to excuse almost anything except sincerity. Elizabeth looked for Jane. Her sister stood near the card tables with Mr. Bingley, smiling as he described something with an enthusiasm that employed both hands.

“He was rude,” Elizabeth said at last.

“Very.”

“I had done nothing to deserve it.”

“Nothing at all.”

Elizabeth caught Charlotte’s hand behind the folds of her skirt, pressed it, and released it before anyone could make an observation of them.

“There. You have had me serious. Let us hope the musicians forgive you.”

“I shall risk it.”

Mr. Bingley came to bid Jane good night with sufficient regret to restore Mrs. Bennet’s spirits to a dangerous height. Charlotte fetched Elizabeth’s shawl. As the family gathered by the old windows, every face that approached the glass seemed to have a stranger looking in upon it.

Outside, Jane took her arm. Their mother began composing her account for Mr. Bennet before the carriage door was shut.

Elizabeth turned back to the lit windows. Somewhere beyond them Mr. Darcy would be going home with his headache, his handsome face, and whatever concern had made him forget himself before he saw her watching.

She wished she had missed that last glimpse. He would have been so much easier to dislike if he had looked pleased with himself.