These offences might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater policy, concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by reflection, by everything. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? – to congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?
– Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 34. Darcy is speaking to Elizabeth here, thanking her for explaining fully to him his serious faults. This passage demonstrates why the novel is called Pride and Prejudice. Darcy accuses Elizabeth of injured pride over his honest admission about the scruples he had to overcome before proposing to her. He shows his own class prejudice when he speaks of the inferiority of Elizabeth’s connections and relations "whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own." Darcy is honest and there is no duplicity about him, he speaks his mind and informs Elizabeth that "disguise of every sort is my abhorrence."