"There now, you look like yourself again, and I am satisfied," cried Belinda. "As to going to Oakly-park, I give you my word I have not the most distant thoughts of it. I stay with you from choice, and not from compulsion, believe me."

"I _do_ believe you," said Lady Delacour; and for a moment she was convinced that Belinda stayed with her for her own sake alone; but the next minute she suspected that Lord Delacour was the secret cause of her refusing to go to Oakly-park. His lordship dined at home this day, and two or three succeeding days, and he was not intoxicated from Monday till Thursday. These circ.u.mstances appeared to his lady very extraordinary. In fact, he was pleased and amused with his little daughter, Helena; and whilst she was yet almost a stranger to him, he wished to appear to her in the most agreeable and respectable light possible. One day after dinner, Lord Delacour, who was in a remarkably good humour, said to her ladyship, "My dear, you know that your new carriage was broken almost to pieces the night when you were overturned.

Well, I have had it all set to rights again, and new painted, and it is all complete, except the hammer-cloth, which must have new fringe. What colour will you have the fringe?"

"What do you say, Miss Portman?" said her ladyship.

"Black and orange would look well, I think," said Belinda, "and would suit the lace of your liveries--would not it?"

"Certainly: black and orange then," said Lord Delacour, "it shall be."

"If you ask my opinion," said Lady Delacour, "I am for blue and white, to match the cloth of the liveries."

"Blue and white then it shall be," said Lord Delacour.

"Nay, Miss Portman has a better taste than I have; and she says black and orange, my lord."

"Then you'll have it black and orange, will you?" said Lord Delacour.

"Just as you please," said Lady Delacour, and no more pa.s.sed.

Soon afterward a note came from Lady Anne Percival, with some trifles belonging to Helena, for which her mother had sent. The note was for Belinda--another pressing invitation to Oakly-park--and a very civil message from Mrs. Margaret Delacour, and thanks to Lady Delacour for the macaw. Ay, thought Lady Delacour, Miss Portman wants to ingratiate herself in time with all my husband's relations. "Mrs. Margaret Delacour should have addressed these thanks to you, Miss Portman, for I had not the grace to think of sending her the macaw." Lord Delacour, who was very fond of his aunt, immediately joined his thanks, and observed that Miss Portman was always considerate--always obliging--always kind.

Then he drank her health in a b.u.mper of burgundy, and insisted upon his little Helena's drinking her health. "I am sure you ought, my dear, for Miss Portman is very good--too good to you, child."

"Very good--not too good, I hope," said Lady Delacour. "Miss Portman, your health."

"And I hope," continued his lordship, after swallowing his b.u.mper, "that my Lady Anne Percival does not mean to inveigle you away from us, Miss Portman. You don't think of leaving us, Miss Portman, I hope? Here's Helena would break her little heart;--I say nothing for my Lady Delacour, because she can say every thing so much better for herself; and I say nothing for myself, because I am the worst man in the world at making speeches, when I really have a thing at heart--as I have your staying with us, Miss Portman."

Belinda a.s.sured him that there was no occasion to press her to do what was perfectly agreeable to her, and said that she had no thoughts of leaving Lady Delacour. Her ladyship, with some embarra.s.sment, expressed herself "extremely obliged, and gratified, and happy." Helena, with artless joy, threw her arms about Belinda, and exclaimed, "I am glad you are not going; for I never liked any body so much, of whom I knew so little."

"The more you know of Miss Portman the more you will like her, child--at least I have found it so," said Lord Delacour.

"Clarence Hervey would, I am sure, have given the Pigot diamond, if it were in his gift, for such a smile as you bestowed on Lord Delacour just now," whispered Lady Delacour. For an instant Belinda was struck with the tone of pique and reproach, in which, her ladyship spoke. "Nay, my dear, I did not mean to make you blush so piteously," pursued her ladyship: "I really did not think it a blushing matter--but you know best. Believe me, I spoke without malice; we are so apt to judge from our own feelings--and I could as soon blush about the old man of the mountains as about my Lord Delacour."

"Lord Delacour!" said Belinda, with a look of such unfeigned surprise, that her ladyship instantly changed countenance, and, taking her hand with gaiety, said, "So, my little Belinda, I have caught you--the blush belongs then to Clarence Hervey? Well, any man of common sense would rather have one blush than a thousand smiles for his share: now we understand one another. And will you go with me to the exhibition to-morrow? I am told there are some charming pictures this year. Helena, who really has a genius for drawing, should see these things; and whilst she _is_ with me, I will make her as happy as possible. You see the reformation is beginning--Clarence Hervey and Miss Portman can do wonders. If it be my fate, at last, to be _la bonne mere_, or _la femme comme il y en a peu_, how can I help it? There is no struggling against fate, my dear!"

Whenever Lady Delacour's suspicions of Belinda were suspended, all her affections returned with double force; she wondered at her own folly, she was ashamed that she could have let such ideas enter her mind, and she was beyond measure astonished that any thing relative to Lord Delacour could so far have interested her attention. "Luckily," said she to herself, "he has not the penetration of a blind beetle; and, besides, he has little snug jealousies of his own: so he will never find me out. It would be an excellent thing indeed, if he were to turn my '_master-torment_' against myself--it would be a judgment upon me. The manes of poor Lawless would then be appeased. But it is impossible I should ever be a jealous wife: I am only a jealous friend, and I must satisfy myself about Belinda. To be a second time a dupe to the treachery of a friend would be too much for me--too much for my pride--too much for my heart."

The next day, when they came to the exhibition, Lady Delacour had an opportunity of judging of Belinda's real feelings. As they went up the stairs, they heard the voices of Sir Philip Baddely and Mr. Rochfort, who were standing upon the landing-place, leaning over the banisters, and running their little sticks along the iron rails, to try which could make the loudest noise.

"Have you been much pleased with the pictures, gentlemen?" said Lady Delacour, as she pa.s.sed them.

"Oh, damme! no--'tis a cursed bore; and yet there are some fine pictures: one in particular--hey, Rochfort?--one d.a.m.ned fine picture!"

said Sir Philip. And the two gentlemen laughing significantly, followed Lady Delacour and Belinda into the rooms.

"Ay, there's one picture that's worth all the rest, 'pon honour!"

repeated Rochfort; "and we'll leave it to your ladyship's and Miss Portman's taste and judgment to find it out, mayn't we, Sir Philip?"

"Oh, damme! yes," said Sir Philip, "by all means." But he was so impatient to direct her eyes, that he could not keep himself still an instant.

"Oh, curse it! Rochfort, we'd better tell the ladies at once, else they may be all day looking and looking!"

"Nay, Sir Philip, may not I be allowed to guess? Must I be told which is your fine picture?--This is not much in favour of my taste."

"Oh, d.a.m.n it! your ladyship has the best taste in the world, every body knows; and so has Miss Portman--and this picture will hit her taste particularly, I'm sure. It is Clarence Hervey's fancy; but this is a dead secret--dead--Clary no more thinks that we know it, than the man in the moon."

"Clarence Hervey's fancy! Then I make no doubt of its being good for something," said Lady Delacour, "if the painter have done justice to his imagination; for Clarence has really a fine imagination."

"Oh, damme! 'tis not amongst the history pieces," cried Sir Philip; "'tis a portrait."

"And a history piece, too, 'pon honour!" said Rochfort: "a family history piece, I take it, 'pon honour! it will turn out," said Rochfort; and both the gentlemen were, or affected to be, thrown into convulsions of laughter, as they repeated the words, "family history piece, 'pon honour!--family history piece, damme!"

"I'll take my oath as to the portrait's being a devilish good likeness,"

added Sir Philip; and as he spoke, he turned to Miss Portman: "Miss Portman has it! damme, Miss Portman has him!"

Belinda hastily withdrew her eyes from the picture at which she was looking. "A most beautiful creature!" exclaimed Lady Delacour.

"Oh, faith! yes; I always do Clary the justice to say, he has a d.a.m.ned good taste for beauty."

"But this seems to be foreign beauty," continued Lady Delacour, "if one may judge by her air, her dress, and the scenery about her--cocoa-trees, plantains: Miss Portman, what think you?"

"I think," said Belinda, (but her voice faltered so much that she could hardly speak,) "that it is a scene from Paul and Virginia. I think the figure is St. Pierre's Virginia."

"Virginia St. Pierre! ma'am," cried Mr. Rochfort, winking at Sir Philip.

"No, no, damme! there you are wrong, Rochfort; say Hervey's Virginia, and then you have it, damme! or, may be, Virginia Hervey--who knows?"

"This is a portrait," whispered the baronet to Lady Delacour, "of Clarence's mistress." Whilst her ladyship leant her ear to this whisper, which was sufficiently audible, she fixed a seemingly careless, but most observing, inquisitive eye upon poor Belinda. Her confusion, for she heard the whisper, was excessive.

"She loves Clarence Hervey--she has no thoughts of Lord Delacour and his coronet: I have done her injustice," thought Lady Delacour, and instantly she despatched Sir Philip out of the room, for a catalogue of the pictures, begged Mr. Rochfort to get her something else, and, drawing Miss Portman's arm within hers, she said, in a low voice, "Lean upon me, my dearest Belinda: depend upon it, Clarence will never be such a fool as to marry the girl--Virginia Hervey she will never be!"

"And what will become of her? can Mr. Hervey desert her? she looks like innocence itself--and so young, too! Can he leave her for ever to sorrow, and vice, and infamy?" thought Belinda, as she kept her eyes fixed, in silent anguish, upon the picture of Virginia. "No, he cannot do this: if he could he would be unworthy of me, and I _ought_ to think of him no more. No; he will marry her; and I _must_ think of him no more."

She turned abruptly away from the picture, and she saw Clarence Hervey standing beside her.

"What do you think of this picture? is it not beautiful? We are quite enchanted with it; but you do not seem to be struck with it, as we were at the first glance," said Lady Delacour.

"Because," answered Clarence, gaily, "it is not the first glance I have had at that picture--I admired it yesterday, and admire it to-day."

"But you are tired of admiring it, I see. Well, we shall not force you to be in raptures with it--shall we, Miss Portman? A man may be tired of the most beautiful face in the world, or the most beautiful picture; but really there is so much sweetness, so much innocence, such tender melancholy in this countenance, that, if I were a man, I should inevitably be in love with it, and in love for ever! Such beauty, if it were in nature, would certainly fix the most inconstant man upon earth."

Belinda ventured to take her eyes for an instant from the picture, to see whether Clarence Hervey looked like the most inconstant man upon earth. He was intently gazing upon her; but as soon as she looked round, he suddenly exclaimed, as he turned to the picture--"A heavenly countenance, indeed!--the painter has done justice to the poet."

"Poet!" repeated Lady Delacour: "the man's in the clouds!"

"Pardon me," said Clarence; "does not M. de St. Pierre deserve to be called a poet? Though he does not write in rhyme, surely he has a poetical imagination."

"Certainly," said Belinda; and from the composure with which Mr. Hervey now spoke, she was suddenly inclined to believe, or to hope, that all Sir Philip's story was false. "M. de St. Pierre undoubtedly has a great deal of imagination, and deserves to be called a poet."

"Very likely, good people!" said Lady Delacour; "but what has that to do with the present purpose?"