The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 243: what you’re looking at

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

216 THE COURT OF LONDON flowers here in this anteroom,” replied Sir Douglas, “ as your ladyship might in that case condescend to practise the same innocent pastime with me.”’ ‘Tt is a punishment, and not as a jest, that I throw this at thee,” exclaimed Venetia, suddenly detaching a bouquet from the corsage of her dress and tossing it toward the baronet. ‘“ Ah! then it is as a revenge, and not as a mere insolent liberty, that I treat your ladyship thus,’’ returned the baronet; and suddenly throwing his arms around Venetia’s neck, he pressed his lips to hers. She received the caress without resentment, certainly, although perhaps she did not exactly return it. But in the look which she flung upon the baronet, as she disengaged herself from his arms, there was something which elevated his hopes to a frenzied height. ‘“ Begone now,” she said, hastily. ‘‘ Let not the prince suppose that you have been lingering here with me.”’ This very remark at once seemed to place the lady and the baronet upon the most familiar footing, by implying, as it were, that a secret had suddenly sprung into existence between them. Intoxicated with the thought that Venetia, the brilhant, beauteous, incomparable Venetia, would yet bestow her favours upon him, Sir Douglas Huntingdon snatched up her hand, pressed it to his lips, and then hurried from the room. Almost immediately afterward the prince came forth from the saloon, carefully closing the glass door behind him; and perceiving Venetia’s flushed cheeks and palpitating bosom, he attributed her excitement to no other cause than the voluptuous spectacle which he had indeed purposely brought her hither to view in the hope that it would inflame her passions to a maddening height. ‘““ Come with me, adored one,’’ he murmured, as he pressed his mouth to those lips that still bore the imprint of the baronet’s far more welcome caress; then fixing upon her a look all burning with desire, the royal voluptuary led his mistress away to his own suite of apartments. Com () LOOK KS (E(0)