He could not believe that there was any change in Valentine,
but he fancied that there might be some side of Valentine's nature which
he did not fully understand, which others vaguely felt and wrongly
interpreted. For it was the instinctive creatures in whom Valentine's
presence now seemed to awake distrust, and surely an instinct may be
too violent, or move in a wrong direction, and yet be inspired by some
subtlety in the character that awakens it, and prompts it, and drives it
forward. Julian thought that he found a reason for Cuckoo's aversion in
Valentine's lofty refinement, which would naturally jar upon her nature
of the streets. For her pathos, her better impulses, which had touched
him and led him to sympathy with her, were perhaps only stars in a mind
that must be a dust-heap of horrible memories and coarse thoughts. To
protect Valentine from even the most diminutive shadow of suspicion,
Julian was ready silently to insist that Cuckoo was radically bad,
although he really knew that she was rather a weak sacrifice than an
eager sinner.
Her declaration that Valentine was evil carried complete conviction of
its sincerity. Indeed, her obvious fear of him proved this. And this fear
of a woman reminded Julian of the fear exhibited towards Valentine by
Rip, a terror which still continued, to such an extent, indeed, that the
little dog was now never permitted to be in the presence of its master.
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