The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 329: what you’re looking at

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

298 THE COURT OF LONDON a slip of paper that which I should blush to say in your presence.” Having thus given a sort of promise to which the baronet instantaneously attached the tenderest and most delicious interpretation, Venetia rose from her seat; and crossing the room, she threw herself upon a sofa at the farther end, as if to get as far as possible from the heat of the very large fire that was blazing in the grate. The Earl of Curzon now approached her, and negligently taking a seat by her side, he began to converse upon a variety of those topics which make up the sum of fashionable dis- course. But Venetia was preoccupied with other and more important matters, so that at times she fell into a pensive mood, from which she wouldsuddenly start and then gaze upon the earl with a look of vacant inquiry, asif in wonder at what he had been saying. In fact, there was altogether a peculi- arity in her manner which she could not control, and which she even rendered more strange by attempting to subdue it, or to repair the awkwardness of its effects. Now the Earl of Curzon had been drinking freely; and the wine had produced upon him a certain excitement which the magic of Venetia’s charms speedily enhanced to an almost frenzied degree. Thus, losing his head, as it were, in the fumes of the generous grape and in the intoxicating influences of his own desires, he mistook that peculiarity of Venetia’s manner for the embarrassment and confusion attendant upon a favourable feeling experienced toward himself. His vanity assisted this belief; and thus blindly abandoning himself to it, he ventured to touch Venetia’s hand with a significant tenderness. She perceived the cir- cumstance and threw upon him a glance which was about to shoot forth the fires of indignation, when all in a moment the truth flashed to her mind. She remembered that her manner had been strange and preoccupied, and this recollec- tion furnished her with the key to the mystery of the earl’s conduct. Yes, it was quite clear; he fancied she was in love with him, and that all the last half-hour’s absence of mind and preoccupation were the proofs of this affection on her part. Thus was it that the sudden flashing of the truth to her comprehension checked the indignation which her looks were about to pour forth upon the earl; and at the same moment COU () LOOK KS (E(0)