Into Hertfordshire by Stanley Michael Hurd

agreed Miss Bingley. Darcy frowned down on his cards until he could free his countenance of the exasperation he felt. Would she never be still?
    “Then you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman,” observed Elizabeth.
    Darcy turned quickly to face her. “Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it,” he said with sincerity. But before he could expand on this statement, Miss Bingley interrupted him: “Oh! Certainly,” cried she, “no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved.”
    All the forms and none of the substance, thought Darcy disparagingly as she spoke. This is exactly the sort of pedestrian and useless course of study followed by every woman in Society: a bit of music, a few amateurish brush strokes, half-a-dozen words of French or Italian, and, of course, every woman’s delight: dancing. Add to that the affectation of superior airs, and one arrived at the common, or garden-variety, Society Miss. And, while we are on the subject, what about having manners enough not to be constantly interrupting others?
    Not wishing to be discourteous himself, though, he merely said, “All this she must possess,” but with a nod towards Elizabeth’s book he added, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”
    “I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women,” Elizabeth observed. “I rather wonder now at your knowing any .”
    Darcy was delighted to finally have something like a dialogue—how well she expressed herself, and how easily she held her ground against the field! With a smile he said, “Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all this?”
    “ I never saw such a woman,” she stated firmly. “ I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe united.” And with this Darcy was forced to agree: when he added his requirements to those of Miss Bingley, he had to allow that his acquaintance failed to supply any such model of womanly excellence. Had he known such a woman, he thought to himself, he would probably have ceased to be single. The remarkable thing was that Elizabeth felt authorised to say so, and, knowing herself to be in the right, did not hesitate to stand against the others.
    Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley, in spite of their earlier attestations that they knew only a handful who could lay claim to accomplishment, were now quick to claim that many of their friends and acquaintances fit this description, which Darcy knew to be a considerable exaggeration. She and her sister were preparing a concerted attack on Elizabeth when Mr. Hurst, who had been suffering mightily from all this conversation during play, cried foul with such vehemence that all discussion was ended. Darcy was disappointed, for he had felt an interest in the conversation that had been wanting the entire evening. Nor did the conversation ever recover, for Elizabeth left them shortly thereafter to return to her sister.
    “Eliza Bennet,” said Miss Bingley, when she had quit the room, “is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art.”
    “Undoubtedly,” replied Darcy, seeing the irony of her statement, inasmuch as she was acting in a manner very like the one she was criticising. “There is meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.” He held her eye