"Very well worth while," cried Belinda and Clarence Hervey, eagerly.
"Ah, pardi! as M. le Comte exclaims continually, Ah, pardi! You are both wonderfully interested in this business. It is some sister, niece, or cousin of Lady Anne Percival's; or--no, Belinda looks as if I were wrong. Then, perhaps, it is Lady Anne herself?--Well, take me where you please, my dear Belinda, and introduce me where you please: I depend on your taste and judgment in all things; but I really am not yet able to pay morning visits."
"The ceremony of a morning visit is quite unnecessary here," said Belinda: "I will introduce the unknown friend to you to-morrow, if you will let me invite her to your reading-party."
"With pleasure. She is some charming émigrée of Clarence Hervey's acquaintance. But where did you meet with her this morning? You have both of you conspired to puzzle me. Take it upon yourselves, then, if this new acquaintance should not, as Ninon de l'Enclos used to say, _quit cost_. If she be half as agreeable and _graceful_, Clarence, as Madame la Comtesse de Pomenars, I should not think her acquaintance too dearly purchased by a dozen morning visits."
Here the conversation was interrupted by a thundering knock at the door.
"Whose carriage is it?" said Lady Delacour. "Oh! Lady Newland's ostentatious livery; and here is her ladyship getting out of her carriage as awkwardly as if she had never been in one before. Overdressed, like a true city dame! Pray, Clarence, look at her, entangled in her bale of gold muslin, and conscious of her bulse of diamonds!--'Worth, if I'm worth a farthing, five hundred thousand pounds bank currency!' she says or seems to say, whenever she comes into a room. Now let us see her entrée--"
"But, my dear," cried Lady Delacour, starting at the sight of Belinda, who was still in her morning dress, "absolutely below par!--Make your escape to Marriott, I conjure you, by all your fears of the contempt of a lady, who will at the first look estimate you, _au juste_, to a farthing a yard."
As she left the room, Belinda heard Clarence Hervey repeat to Lady Delacour--
"Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free--"