In a tone of blandishment he expostulated with her upon her
unkind behaviour and unreasonable aversion. With all that sophistry,
that ingenious vice knows so well how to employ, he endeavoured to
evince that his conduct had been regulated by kindness, rectitude and
humanity. In the mean time the retinue withdrew to a small distance.
Imogen insisted upon not being left wholly alone with her ravisher.
Able to perplex but not to subvert the understanding of his prize,
Roderic addressed her with the language of love. Naturally eloquent, all
that he now said was accompanied with that ineffable sweetness, and that
soft insinuation, that must have shaken the integrity of Imogen, had her
heart been less constant, and her bosom less glowed with the enthusiasm
of virtue. Her betrayer was conscious to a real, though a degenerate
flame, and was not reduced to feign an ardour he did not feel.
Recollecting however the pure manners, and the delicate and ingenuous
language to which Imogen had been inured among the inhabitants of Clwyd,
the subtle sorcerer did not permit an expression to escape him, that
could offend the chastest ear, or alarm the most suspicious virtue. His
love, ardent as it appeared, seemed to be entirely under the government
of the strictest propriety, and the most unfeigned rectitude.
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