"Undoubtedly, Sir," said Cecilia, willing to shorten this parading harangue, "but as he neglected that intention, will you think me too impertinent should I entreat the favour of you to speak with Sir Robert yourself, and explain to him the total inefficacy of his pursuit, since my determination against him is unalterable?"
Here the conference was interrupted by the entrance of a servant who said something to Mr Delvile, which occasioned his apologizing to Cecilia for leaving her for a few moments, and ostentatiously assuring her that no business, however important, should prevent his thinking of her affairs, or detain him from returning to her as soon as possible.
The astonishment of young Delvile at the strength of her last expression kept him silent some time after his father left the room; and then, with a countenance that still marked his amazement, he said "Is it possible, Miss Beverley, that I should twice have been thus egregiously deceived? or rather, that the whole town, and even the most intimate of your friends, should so unaccountably have persisted in a mistake."
"For the town," answered Cecilia, "I know not how it can have had any concern in so small a matter; but for my intimate friends, I have too few to make it probable they should ever have been so strangely misinformed."
"Pardon me," cried he, "it was from one who ought to know, that I had myself the intelligence."
"I entreat you, then," said Cecilia, "to acquaint me who it was?"
"Mr Harrel himself; who communicated it to a lady in my hearing, and at a public place."
Cecilia cast up her eyes in wonder and indignation at a proof so incontrovertible of his falsehood, but made not any answer.
"Even yet," continued he, "I can scarcely feel undeceived; your engagement seemed so positive, your connection so irretrievable,-- so,--so fixed, I mean.--"
He hesitated, a little embarrassed; but then suddenly exclaimed, "Yet whence, if to neither favourable, if indifferent alike to Sir Robert and to Belfield, whence that animated apprehension for their safety at the Opera-house? whence that never to be forgotten oh stop him! good God! will nobody stop him!--Words of anxiety so tender! and sounds that still vibrate in my ear!"
Cecilia, struck with amazement in her turn at the strength of his own expressions, blushed, and for a few minutes hesitated how to answer him: but then, to leave nothing that related to so disagreeable a report in any doubt, she resolved to tell him ingenuously the circumstances that had occasioned her alarm: and therefore, though with some pain to her modesty, she confessed her fears that she had herself provoked the affront, though her only view had been to discountenance Sir Robert, without meaning to shew any distinction to Mr Belfield.