The Great Impersonation

Mr. Oppenheim forgive me:

Dominey felt from his soul he would have welcomed an earthquake, a thunderbolt, the crumbling of the floor beneath his feet to have been spared the torture of her sweet importunities.

From: The Great Impersonation, by E. Phillips Oppenheim

I'm thinking those must've been s-o-m-e 'importunities'....