Cecilia and Belfield, though they heard this speech with mutual
indignation, had no time to mark or express it, as it was answered
without in a voice at once loud and furious, "_You_, madam, may be
content to listen here; pardon me if I am less humbly disposed!" And
the door was abruptly opened by young Delvile!

Cecilia, who half screamed from excess of astonishment, would scarcely,
even by the presence of Belfield and his mother, have been restrained
from flying to meet him, had his own aspect invited such a mark of
tenderness; but far other was the case; when the door was open, he
stopt short with a look half petrified, his feet seeming rooted to the
spot upon which they stood.

"I declare I ask pardon, ma'am," cried Mrs Belfield, "but the
interruption was no fault of mine, for the gentleman would come in;
and--"

"It is no interruption, madam;" cried Belfield, "Mr Delvile does me
nothing but honour."

"I thank you, Sir!" said Delvile, trying to recover and come forward,
but trembling violently, and speaking with the most frigid coldness.

They were then, for a few instants, all silent; Cecilia, amazed by his
arrival, still more amazed by his behaviour, feared to speak lest he
meant not, as yet, to avow his marriage, and felt a thousand
apprehensions that some new calamity had hurried him home: while
Belfield was both hurt by his strangeness, and embarrassed for the sake
of Cecilia; and his mother, though wondering at them all, was kept
quiet by her son's looks.