cabinet for _arque-busade._ On being denied entrance, he seized the key,
believing a lover of hers was concealed there, until Belinda sprang
forward and took it from him, leaving them to believe what they would.

This circumstance was afterwards explained by Dr. X----, a mutual
friend, and Hervey was so much charmed with Belinda that he would have
gone to her at once--only that he had undertaken the reformation of Lady
Delacour.


_III.--An Unexpected Suitor_


In the meantime, after spending a morning in tasting wines, and thinking
that, although he had never learned to swim, some recollection he had of
an essay on swimming would ensure his safety, he betted his friends a
hundred guineas that he would swim to a certain point, and flinging
himself into the Serpentine, would have drowned before their eyes but
for the help of Mr. Percival. The breach caused by this affair induced
Sir Philip Baddely, a gentleman who always supplied "each vacuity of
sense" with an oath, to endeavour to cut him out by proposing to
Belinda.

"Damme, you're ten times handsomer than the finest woman I ever saw,
for, damme, I didn't know what it was to be in love then," he said,
heaving an audible sigh. "I'll trouble you for Mrs. Stanhope's
direction, Miss Portman; I believe, to do the thing in style, I ought to
write to her before I speak to you."

Belinda looked at him in astonishment, and then, finding he was in