For me this question pops up a little earlier in the book: when he leaves the room in the Lambton inn. "..as she threw a retrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintance, so full of contradictions and varieties, sighed at the perverseness of those feelings which would have now have promoted its continuance, and would formerly have rejoiced in its termination. If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth`s change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty."