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The glow of the party lasts exactly as long as it takes for Bingley to vanish. Jane waits — a day, three days, a week — for a text that never comes, until Caroline sends one instead: a long, cool, immaculately polite message explaining that Charles has gone back to the city for the foreseeable future, that he's been so busy, that they all think he's better off focusing on himself right now. Jane, being Jane, reads it as kindness and blames only herself; Lizzie reads it as an execution. She can't prove anything, but she can count: Darcy watched her family embarrass themselves at that party, wore that cool little verdict on his face all night, and days later the best thing that ever happened to her sister evaporated. Over coffee, her pragmatic best friend Charlotte Lucas refuses to let her convict a man on a feeling — 'you don't KNOW he did it' — and lays out her own unromantic gospel about how these things really work: that maybe Jane should have shown her hand sooner, that comfort and security outlast butterflies, that wanting less gets hurt less. It doesn't land. Between Mrs. Bennet's operatic grief over the lost fortune, her father's dry cruelty, and one raw, honest midnight conversation where Jane finally admits it hurts, Lizzie's suspicion hardens into conviction. By the last page the two charges against Mr. Darcy — what he did to George, what she's certain he did to Jane — have fused into a single cold certainty, and she is done giving him the benefit of the doubt.
第 1 頁
The morning after the party, in the warm, lived-in Bennet kitchen. Jane cradles a mug of coffee, glowing. Jane: 'He danced with me twice, Lizzie. Twice.' Lizzie, guarded, stirring her coffee with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes: 'He's crazy about you. Anyone could see it.' Jane tilts her head, teasing gently: 'And you and Darcy? A whole dance?' Lizzie, glancing away: 'That was nothing.'
第 2 頁
Lizzie, uncomfortable, rubbing the back of her neck: 'He asked. It would've been rude to say no.' Jane, knowing, over the rim of her mug: 'You're blushing.' Lizzie, flustered, throwing up one hand: 'I am NOT. He's insufferable.' Then, quieter and caught out: 'He's just... complicated.'
第 3 頁
Caption: Three days later. Jane curls on the couch, glancing at her silent phone, keeping her smile and her hope up. She sets it face-down on her knee. Jane: 'He's just busy. That's all.'