ACCORDING TO JANE, Caroline Bingley had at last discovered a sushi restaurant in Cincinnati that met her standards and had invited Jane to join her there for lunch. Just us 2, none of your sisters, Caroline had specified in a text to Jane that morning that Liz had seen while Jane was in the shower, and Liz had tried not to experience the doubly insulting sting of being excluded by a person she didn’t care for.

“I wonder if she’s sniffing you out as a sister-in-law,” Liz said as she passed off her father’s car keys to Jane. If Caroline was, Liz thought without true optimism, perhaps Chip could be the one to save the Bennet family from financial ruin. Although Liz was still rattled by the conversation with her father, and didn’t realistically see how she could honor his wish to keep its contents private even from Jane, this didn’t seem like the moment to repeat them.

“I’m pretty sure Caroline just wants to hang out,” Jane said. The sisters’ eyes met, and Jane whispered, “Lizzy, he told me last night that he loves me.”

“Oh my God,” Liz said. “I knew it! Did you say it back?”

Jane seemed bashful but very pleased. She nodded. Still whispering, she said, “It’s crazy, right? We’ve only known each other a few weeks.”

Beneath her pleasure for Jane, Liz felt a stab of envy; she and Jasper did not say it, after sixteen years. Once, more than a decade before, during an overwrought conversation following a few months of not speaking, Jasper had said to her, “I love you in my life,” and she’d replied, “I love you in mine.” It had been a triumphant and horrible moment, never replicated.

Trying to sound lighthearted, Liz said to Jane, “When you know, you know.”