“You cannot have the new carriage you have bespoken,” said his lordship. “Will you do me the honour to attend to me, Lady Delacour?” “Then you won’t venture to guess, Belinda,” said her ladyship (without honouring her lord with the smallest portion of her attention)--“Well, I believe you are right--for certainly you would guess him to be six-and-sixty, instead of six-and-thirty; but then he can drink more than any two-legged animal in his majesty’s dominions, and you know that is an advantage which is well worth twenty or thirty years of a man’s life--especially to persons who have no other chance of distinguishing themselves.” “If some people had distinguished themselves a little less in the world,” retorted his lordship, “it would have been as well!” “As well!--how flat!” “Flatly then I have to inform you, Lady Delacour, that I will neither be contradicted nor laughed at--you understand me,--it would be as well, flat or not flat, my Lady Delacour, if your ladyship would attend more to your own conduct, and less to others!” “To _that_ of others--his lordship means, if he means any thing. Apropos, Belinda, did not you tell me Clarence Hervey is coming to town?--You have never seen him.--Well, I’ll describe him to you by negatives. He is _not_ a man who ever says any thing flat--he is _not_ a man who must be wound up with half a dozen bottles of champaign before he can _go_--he is _not_ a man who, when he does go, goes wrong, and won’t be set right--he is _not_ a man, whose whole consequence, if he were married, would depend on his wife--he is _not_ a man, who, if he were married, would be so desperately afraid of being governed by his wife, that he would turn gambler, jockey, or sot, merely to show that he could govern himself.” “Go on, Lady Delacour,” said his lordship, who had been in vain attempting to balance a spoon on the edge of his teacup during the whole of this speech, which was delivered with the most animated desire to provoke--“Go on, Lady Delacour--all I desire is, that you should go on; Clarence Hervey will be much obliged to you, and I am sure so shall I. Go on, my Lady Delacour--go on, and you’ll oblige me.” “I never will oblige you, my lord, that you may depend upon,” cried her ladyship, with a look of indignant contempt. His lordship whistled, rang for his horses, and looked at his nails with a smile. Belinda, shocked and in a great confusion, rose to leave the room, dreading the gross continuance of this matrimonial dialogue. “Mr. Hervey, my lady,” said a footman, opening the door; and he was scarcely announced, when her ladyship went forward to receive him with an air of easy familiarity.--“Where have you buried yourself, Hervey, this age past?” cried she, shaking hands with him: “there’s absolutely no living in this most stupid of all worlds without you.--Mr. Hervey--Miss Portman--but don’t look as if you were half asleep, man--What are you dreaming of, Clarence? Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?”