The Luck of the Vails by E.F. Benson

Dinner was over, and of Lady Oxted's party there only remained by eleven o'clock but a couple of her guests. There was a ball at one house, an evening party at another, a concert at a third, and each claimed its grilling quota, leaving even at this hour only Harry Vail and Geoffrey Langham. Lord Oxted, as was his wont, had retired to his study, as soon as his duties as host would permit, without positively violating decency, but the two young men still lingered, making an intimate party.

During the last few months Harry had continued to so expand that it would have been difficult to recognise in him the hero of that recluse coming-of-age party but half a year ago. But this change was the result of no violent revolution; his nature had in no way been wrested from its normal development, merely that development had been long retarded, and was now proportionately rapid. For years his solitary home had ringed him with frost, the want of kindly fireside interests had led him on the path that leads to the great, unexplored deserts of the recluse; but the impulse given, the plunge into the world taken, he had thriven and grown with marvellous alacrity.