Pride and Prejudice

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declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern
which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more
gentlemanlike manner."

She saw him start at this, but he said nothing, and she continued:

"You could not have made the offer of your hand in any possible way that
would have tempted me to accept it."

Again his astonishment was obvious; and he looked at her with an
expression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on:

"From the very beginning--from the first moment, I may almost say--of
my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest
belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of
the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of
disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a