Speaking thus of Lady Glenmore, it must not be supposed that she viewed her own conduct and career in its true light, or that she erred from any determination to err, or even from being led away by any impulse of passion; far from it. The innocence of her nature, her domestic habits and education, as well as her attachment to her husband, had in the first instance rendered her present mode of life distasteful. But it is the very property of the subtle poison of that atmosphere in which she lived and breathed to pollute the healthful springs of being, till the moral taste becomes less and less acute, and is at length wholly corrupted, leaving the mind totally unable to discriminate between right and wrong. Although, with the young men who lived in the same society, the event of the downfall of her reputation was looked upon as a thing of course, and hailed, in their licentiousness of spirit, as a matter of congratulation, since it would level another victim to their standard, still there were others of the _coterie_, who, from motives of policy, were anxious that no further _esclandre_ should take place, than that which had already arisen on the subject, to call forth the loud reprehension of a public whom they at once feared and despised, and whose opinions, though they set them at defiance, they in reality wished not to brave unnecessarily: for in the instance of Lady Glenmore, the destruction of so much happiness as was supposed to have centred in her union would be likely to create proportionate abhorrence and condemnation of a system of society which had been the occasion of it, and lead to a sifting and exposure of the principle and motives on which that system was based. Lady Tilney was the first person whose acuteness and vigilance descried the danger; and was impelled to attempt an arrangement of the business, as well from her general love of managing every body and every thing, as from the more weighty reason attached to it. Being perfectly aware of Lady Glenmore's character, she dreaded lest an affair which, in the hands of a woman of tact, might have been managed without any _éclat_, would with her be precipitated to a point which must end in an exposure. She felt, however, that to speak to Lady Glenmore openly would be to commit herself with a person whose want of discretion was the chief ground of her apprehensions respecting her; and therefore, after much reflection, she determined to seek the assistance of Lady Tenderden in the business, and employ her in its management, as being more intimate with the parties than she herself was.