The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

28 THE COURT OF LONDON ' Horace, recoiling from the idea which suddenly smote him as with the blow of a hammer. “ Is it possible that you — you sa We And he hesitated, he dared not complete the sentence, but he gazed with a look of mingled agony and shame on the splendid countenance of his wife, that countenance which the warm blood was now richly suffusing. ** T know what you would say. You would ask me whether I have prostituted myself to obtain these moneys?’”’ and her tone was penetrated with a poignant bitterness. ‘‘ No, no, it has not come to that yet,’”’ she continued, her features suddenly lighting up with a feeling of satisfaction, ‘‘ but the next time you demand money of me, I must either re- fuse you, or else —”’ ‘No, no, that shall never be,”’ exclaimed Sackville, with a shudder. ‘‘ All my feelings as a man, as a husband, revolt against such a horror. When our compact was formed, — that compact which left us to follow our own inclinations, irrespective of all the ties of love or marriage, — it was that we might each pursue that career of fashionable pleasure which may be depravity in the true sense of the word, but which, at all events, should have nothing grovelling, low, and despicably mean about it. In a word, I understood that you might shine as the mistress of the prince, and be- stow your favours where the whim or fancy prompted you, but to sell your charms, Venetia — no, no, never, never! ”’ ‘‘ Ah! you would not, then, like to know that I became so thoroughly lost to every sense of delicacy as that? ”’ said Venetia, surprised, and not altogether displeased at the vehemence with which her husband had spoken on the point. ‘“‘ T should hate, I should loathe, I should abominate you,”’ was the quick reply which Horace gave. ; “Then you do still love me a little? ” said Venetia, in a tremulous voice. “Think you that having once loved you so fondly, so devotedly, so enthusiastically,’ exclaimed Horace, seating himself by the side of his splendid wife and taking her hand, ‘it is possible to have ceased to love you altogether? No, no; besides which, you are so beautiful, so grandly hand- some, it were impossible to help loving you. Ah! if our destiny had been otherwise, if we had been permitted at the time of our marriage to remain in that comparatively humble COMmMiclookks (Cl)