A VALIANT IGNORANCE
A
VALIANT IGNORANCE
A Novel
BY
MARY ANGELA DICKENS
AUTHOR OF “CROSS CURRENTS,” “A MERE CYPHER,” ETC.
Prince Hohenstiel Schwangau
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.
London
MACMILLAN & CO.
AND NEW YORK
1894
Chapter I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV.
A VALIANT IGNORANCE
CHAPTER I
The oppressive autumn weather continued for the next week and more, butthe atmosphere in the house at Chelsea gradually cleared; at least, theelectrical disturbances which had, as a matter of fact, culminated inJulian’s departure for the club, subsided. As the days went on, Juliangradually recovered his spirits. His temper, which had given way sosuddenly and completely under the strain put upon it by theunprecedented thwarting to which he had been subjected, recovered itscareless easiness. The injured expression of moodiness disappearedwholly from his face, and his manner resumed its buoyancy.
Nevertheless, the life of the present autumn was by no means the life ofthe past spring. Partly, of course, the different framework wasresponsible; life, especially at this particular{2} moment, when wintersociety was as yet hardly formed, consisted by no means wholly of asocial existence. It was, in fact, distinctly “slack” and heavy onsocial lines as compared with the high pressure of the season; and theintroduction into the routine of life of a certain number of hours ofregular work on Julian’s part—the first practical acknowledgement inthe house in Queen Anne Street, that work had anything to do withlife—could not fail to alter the tone to some extent. But there was asubtle change in Julian himself, which was hardly to be accounted for onsuch broad lines. He had recovered his normal mental temperature,indeed, but the interval of disturbance seemed to have had someindefinable effect upon him. He had recovered himself—but it washimself with a difference. It was almost impossible to narrow thedifference into words. To say that he was colder to his mother, or thathe stood deliberately aloof from her, would not have been true. Butthere was a touch of independence about his whole personality which wasnew to it; a certain suggestion of a separate life and separateinterests, such as must inevitably come to