VOLUME III
13. CHAPTER XIII
(continued)
"You are very kind--but you are mistaken--and I must set you right.--
I am not in want of that sort of compassion. My blindness to what
was going on, led me to act by them in a way that I must always
be ashamed of, and I was very foolishly tempted to say and do many
things which may well lay me open to unpleasant conjectures, but I
have no other reason to regret that I was not in the secret earlier."
"Emma!" cried he, looking eagerly at her, "are you, indeed?"--
but checking himself--"No, no, I understand you--forgive me--I am
pleased that you can say even so much.--He is no object of regret,
indeed! and it will not be very long, I hope, before that becomes
the acknowledgment of more than your reason.--Fortunate that your
affections were not farther entangled!--I could never, I confess,
from your manners, assure myself as to the degree of what you felt--
I could only be certain that there was a preference--and a preference
which I never believed him to deserve.--He is a disgrace to the name
of man.--And is he to be rewarded with that sweet young woman?--
Jane, Jane, you will be a miserable creature."
"Mr. Knightley," said Emma, trying to be lively, but really confused--
"I am in a very extraordinary situation. I cannot let you continue in
your error; and yet, perhaps, since my manners gave such an impression,
I have as much reason to be ashamed of confessing that I never have
been at all attached to the person we are speaking of, as it might
be natural for a woman to feel in confessing exactly the reverse.--
But I never have."
He listened in perfect silence. She wished him to speak, but he
would not. She supposed she must say more before she were entitled
to his clemency; but it was a hard case to be obliged still to lower
herself in his opinion. She went on, however.
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