When she overhears him discussing herself as being "tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me" it reinforces her earlier belief. With her mind made up as to his character, she shows her prejudice by being unable to believe that he has any good points, and this feeling is carried through the first half of the novel.
Elizabeth is thrown into Darcy's company when her sister Jane becomes ill while on a visit to the Bingleys. Lizzie goes to look after her sister, and is invited to stay until she is better. While there, Darcy clearly becomes fond of her, and grows to admire her looks, "they (her fine eyes) were brightened by the exercise", and her character, "were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger." After living so closely together for a few days, Austen tells us that Darcy "began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention.".
When Darcy first proposes to her, he puts it in such terms that there is no way that Lizzie will accept him - "In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed". He exposes all his prejudices against her family, and states exactly why he feels it is such a bad idea for him to propose, rather than declaring his love for her. "His sense of her inferiority - of its being a degradation- .was very unlikely to recommend his suit". Lizzie sees that he is confident that she will accept him, and this angers her, causing her to reject him more harshly than would have been the norm, "if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you . I have never desired your good opinion." Darcy is shocked by this and asks for an explanation as to "why, with so little endeavour of civility, I am thus rejected." She cites his own language, used in his proposal and decries him for "ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister". She describes his character from the first time she saw him "your arrogance, your conceit and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed on to marry.
