This passage is a great example of the tension between Elizabeth and Mr Darcy throughout the entire book.  They are the two characters that do a beautiful dance around each other, but never touch.  In this passage they have run into each other after a long time of seperation.  Elizabeth is still trying to fight that she sees him as anything but vain and contemptable.  She has however been the one to put herself in the situation of being at his house, and eventhough later on in this passage she will deny putting herself there on purpose, the reader already suspects otherwise.

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