"Nonsense, Darcy," exclaimed Bingley, in the midst of the storm of laughing protests evoked by this remark, "think of the acting, and the splendid mise en scène, if your heart fails within you. Besides, you can always applaud. Nowadays it is the fashion to admire loudest what one understands least."
Darcy led the way to the dining-room with Mrs. Jennings, and as the ladies of the party out-numbered the gentlemen, William Price found that it fell to his lot to escort both Miss Darcy and Miss Bennet. The former, seeing this, stepped on for a pace or two in advance, and Kitty, as she took his arm, murmured: "How discouraging Darcy is! He always manages to make one feel that he despises the things we are doing."
William glanced to see if Mr. Darcy's sister had heard, and rejoined, "I should hardly have thought so. He is only teasing, I fancy, and you know he was speaking to Mr. Bingley, and they probably understand each other particularly well."
"Still," said Kitty, "I must say I do not like that sort of teasing; it is very provoking to be continually laughed at, and for one's best friend to do it makes it all the worse."
"No, no, Miss Bennet, I am afraid I can't agree with you there; one can put up with anything from one's best friend, or at all events with things which one would not stand for a moment from anyone else. I wonder if Miss Darcy feels that too?" he added, as they settled themselves into their places at the table.
"I am not quite sure," replied Georgiana, when the question had been explained to her. "I think that ridicule may be harder to bear from our friends than from an uninterested person, merely because one feels they ought to know best what is painful to one—if it is of a painful kind; but on the other hand, one may always feel sure that a real friend had no intention of saying anything of the sort."
"That would not be much good to me!" cried Kitty. "I find it is too late, when I have already been very much vexed with anyone, to remember that they really did not mean to vex me."
"Of course, it is not much consolation, when the blow has been already dealt," said Georgiana musingly; "I meant that when one has reason to believe no unkind motive exists behind anything one's friend says, then one is not expecting to be hurt."
Kitty did not want to seem inclined to pursue the subject, and William Price, after a moment's pause, said: "I imagine that you mean, by a motive, the general feeling of goodwill in your friend's mind towards you. I should doubt if people really have a distinct motive for every little thing they do and say—at all events, they would have some difficulty in defining one. But perhaps you yourself, Miss Darcy, are a student of motives—perhaps your own actions are determined by a clear purpose?"
"Mine? Oh, dear, no," said Georgiana, looking up at him, and down again with a bright blush. "I think it is rather interesting to speculate upon other people's motives and to wonder what hidden impulses make them do certain things which seem hard to account for; but as to myself—oh, no, I never understand my own motives—I do not always know what they are. Do you understand yours?"