Mr. Hervey did not contest his seat, and Sir Philip kept his post during the remainder of the concert; but, though he had the field entirely to himself, he could not think of any thing more interesting, more amusing, to whisper in Belinda’s ear, than, “Don’t you think the candles want snuffing famously?” CHAPTER XII. THE MACAW. The baronet determined the next day upon the grand attack. He waited upon Miss Portman with the certainty of being favourably received; but he was, nevertheless, somewhat embarrassed to know how to begin the conversation, when he found himself alone with the lady. He twirled and twisted a short stick that he held in his hand, and put it into and out of his boot twenty times, and at last he began with--“Lady Delacour’s not gone to Harrowgate yet?” “No: her ladyship has not yet felt herself well enough to undertake the journey.” “That was a cursed unlucky overturn! She may thank Clarence Hervey for that: it’s like him,--he thinks he’s a better judge of horses, and wine, and every thing else, than any body in the world. Damme, now if I don’t believe he thinks nobody else but himself has eyes enough to see that a fine woman’s a fine woman; but I’d have him to know, that Miss Belinda Portman has been Sir Philip Baddely’s toast these two months.” As this intelligence did not seem to make the expected impression upon Miss Belinda Portman, Sir Philip had recourse again to his little stick, with which he went through the sword exercise. After a silence of some minutes, and after walking to the window, and back again, as if to look for sense, he exclaimed, “How is Mrs. Stanhope now, pray, Miss Portman? and your sister, Mrs. Tollemache? she was the finest woman, I thought, the first winter she came out, that ever I saw, damme. Have you ever been told that you’re like her?” “Never, sir.” “Oh, damn it then, but you are; only ten times handsomer.” “Ten times handsomer than the finest woman you ever saw, Sir Philip?” said Belinda, smiling. “Than the finest woman I had ever seen _then_,” said Sir Philip; “for, damme, I did not know what it was to be in love _then_” (here the baronet heaved an audible sigh): “I always laughed at love, and all that, _then_, and marriage particularly. 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 with astonishment; and laying down the pencil with which she had just begun to write a direction to Mrs. Stanhope, she said, “Perhaps, Sir Philip, to _do the thing in style_, I ought to pretend at this instant not to understand you; but such false delicacy might mislead you: permit me, therefore, to say, that if I have any concern in the letter which you, are going to write to my aunt Stanhope----”