The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 328: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

306 THE COURT OF LONDON very attitude, the dress, the warmth, the perfume, the luxu- rious aspect of the boudoir, the silence of the hour, the mellow light shed by a lamp placed upon the table, — all these circumstances and influences were of themselves sufficient to produce that effect upon a woman of glowing tempera- ment and who had abjured all notions of prudery. But when to these provocative and exciting causes was super- added the fact that she had given an appointment to an admirer, and that she was now every moment expecting this admirer’s presence, it may well be supposed that Venetia’s heart was already fluttering with desire, and that her cheeks were flushing, her eyes looking languid, and her bosom palpitating in the expectation of that deeper delirium and more frenetic whirl of pleasure into which the enjoyments of love would shortly plunge her. But such would not have been her sensations were she - expecting the prince regent instead of Sir Douglas Hunting- don. And here let us observe that his Royal Highness had in reality given her no intimation, ere now in the saloon, that he purposed to inflict his presence upon her this night; she had merely made the statement to her husband in order to ensure the uninterrupted privacy of her boudoir for herself and the baronet. But now the reader will possibly ask whether Venetia experienced any genuine or _ sincere affection for Sir Douglas Huntingdon. No, not at all. It was but a passing whim and a fantasy of the moment that had in the first instance led her to give him the slightest encouragement on that night when they met in the anteroom and became companion spectators of the scene that was passing the other side of the glass door on that occasion. Since then she had gone on encouraging him in the fre- quency of his visits, she had allowed him to become more and more familiar with her, she had also permitted him to bestow those little caresses upon her which she received without chiding, — all this she had done, we say, simply because, the barrier of virtue once broken down, she neither had the courage, the inclination, nor the self-respect sufficient to check the development of that natural wantonness which was hurrying her on into actual profligacy. Nor was it indeed likely that a young and lovely woman of fervid temperament, who had abandoned herself to the prince, whom she loathed, in order that she might further her CORMICLIOOKS (E(0)