earnest, assured him it was not in her power to encourage his addresses,
although she was fully sensible of the honour he had done her.

"Confusion seize me!" cried he, starting up, "if it isn't the most
extraordinary thing I ever heard! Is it to Sir Philip Baddely's
fortune--£15,000 a year--you object, or to his family, or to his person?
Oh, curse it!" said he, changing his tone, "you're only quizzing me to
see how I should look--you do it too well, you little coquette!"

Belinda again assured him she was entirely in earnest, and that she was
incapable of the sort of coquetry which he ascribed to her. To punish
her for this rejection he spread the report of Hervey's entanglement
with a beautiful girl named Virginia, whose picture he had sent to an
exhibition. He also roused Lady Delacour's jealousy into the belief that
Belinda meant to marry her husband, the viscount, after her death.

In her efforts to bring husband and wife together, Belinda had forgotten
that jealousy could exist without love, and a letter from Mrs. Stanhope,
exaggerating the scandalous reports in the hope of forcing her niece to
marry Sir Philip Baddely, shocked her so much that when Lady Delacour
quarrelled with her, she accepted an invitation from Lady Anne Percival,
and went there at once.

There she became acquainted with Mr. Percival's ward, Augustus Vincent,
a Creole, about two-and-twenty, tall and remarkably handsome, with
striking manners and an engaging person, who fixed his favourable
attention on her. The Percivals would have wished her to marry him, but
she still thought too much of Clarence Hervey to consent, although she
believed he had some engagement with the lovely Virginia.