“If Clarence Hervey,” cried she, “were not the most honourable of blockheads, he might be the most happy of men. This Virginia!—oh, how I hate her!—I am sure poor Clarence cannot love her.”
“Because you hate her—or because you hate her without having ever seen her?” said Belinda.
“Oh, I know what she must be,” replied Lady Delacour: “a soft, sighing, dying damsel, who puts bullfinches into her bosom. Smile, smile, my dear; you cannot help it; in spite of all your generosity, I know you must think as I do, and wish as I do, that she were at the bottom of the Black Sea this instant.”
Lady Delacour stood for some minutes musing, and then exclaimed, “I will move heaven and earth to break off this absurd match.”
“Good Heavens! my dear Lady Delacour, what do you mean?”
“Mean! my dear—I mean what I say, which very few people do: no wonder I should surprise you.”
“I conjure you,” cried Belinda, “if you have the least regard for my honour and happiness—”
“I have not the least, but the greatest; and depend upon it, my dear, I will do nothing that shall injure that dignity of mind and delicacy of character, which I admire and love, as much as Clarence Hervey did, and does. Trust to me: not Lady Anne Percival herself can be more delicate in her notions of propriety than I am for my friends, and, since my reformation, I hope I may add, for myself. Fear nothing.” As she finished these words, she rang for her carriage. “I don’t ask you to go out with me, my dear Belinda; I give you leave to sit in this armchair till I come back again, with your feet upon the fender, a book in your hand, and this little table beside you, like Lady S.‘s picture of Comfort.”
Lady Delacour spent the rest of the morning abroad; and when she returned home, she gave no account of what she had been doing, or of what or whom she had seen. This was so unusual, that Belinda could not avoid taking notice of it. Notwithstanding her ladyship’s eulogium upon her own delicate sense of propriety, Miss Portman could not confide, with perfect resignation, in her prudence.
“Your ladyship reproached me once,” said she, in a playful tone, “for my provoking want of curiosity: you have completely cured me of this defect, for never was woman more curious than I am, at this instant, to know the secret scheme that you have in agitation.”