It is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second, or even a third time. I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just said.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 19. There is dramatic irony here, because the reader knows that Elizabeth is being sincere in her refusal of Mr. Collins’s proposal of marriage, but he interprets it as a sign of her being modest. Mr. Collins is just one of those men who refuses to hear the word "no." He is being rather full of himself with his sense of self-importance, thinking that he is God’s gift to unmarried women looking for a husband.