“Why here's a lady, sure enough!” said Mr Hobson, “and just where she should be, and that is with a gentleman. Ha! ha! that's the right way, according to my notion! that's the true maxim for living agreeable.” “I came to see Miss Belfield,” cried Cecilia, endeavouring, but vainly, to speak with composure, “and she brought me into this room.” “I am but this moment,” cried Belfield, with eagerness, “returned home; and unfortunately broke into the room, from total ignorance of the honour which Miss Beverley did my sister.” These speeches, though both literally true, sounded, in the circumstances which brought them out, so much as mere excuses, that while Mr Delvile haughtily marked his incredulity by a motion of his chin, Mrs Belfield continued winking at him most significantly, and Mr Hobson, with still less ceremony, laughed aloud. “I have nothing more, ma'am,” said Mr Delvile to Mrs Belfield, “to enquire, for the few doubts with which I came to this house are now entirely satisfied. Good morning to you, ma'am.” “Give me leave, Sir,” said Cecilia, advancing with more spirit, “to explain, in presence of those who can best testify my veracity, the real circumstances--” “I would by no means occasion you such unnecessary trouble, ma'am,” answered he, with an air at once exulting and pompous, “the situation in which I see you abundantly satisfies my curiosity, and saves me from the apprehension I was under of being again convicted of a _mistake_!” He then made her a stiff bow, and went to his chair. Cecilia, colouring deeply at this contemptuous treatment, coldly took leave of Henrietta, and courtsying to Mrs Belfield, hastened into the passage, to get into her own. Henrietta was too much intimidated to speak, and Belfield was too delicate to follow her; Mr Hobson only said “The young lady seems quite dashed;” but Mrs Belfield pursued her with entreaties she would stay. She was too angry, however, to make any answer but by a distant bow of the head, and left the house with a resolution little short of a vow never again to enter it. Her reflections upon this unfortunate visit were bitter beyond measure; the situation in which she had been surprised,--clandestinely concealed with only Belfield and his sister--joined to the positive assertions of her partiality for him made by his mother, could not, to Mr Delvile, but appear marks irrefragable that his charge in his former conversation was rather mild than over-strained, and that the connection he had mentioned, for whatever motives denied, was incontestably formed.