THE STEADFAST HEART
mother, there had been no mother to love, only a woman who was one of the hardships which made up the narrow circle of his life, a part of his day’s work. She had been there, and he accepted her as a fact. Now she would not be there, which was another fact to be accepted…. He had no imagination.
Alvin Trueman was shocked at the boy’s indifference, his seeming callousness, for he was accustomed to seeing people act in quite different fashion on the occasion of the death of a dear one…. He began to fear that in so abnormal a child there might smoulder the distorted soul of one born contrary to the intention of God and Nature for the uses of crime.
“Aren’t you sorry?” he demanded sharply.
The minister scrutinized the boy. The head, he saw, was well formed, with plenty of arch behind the ears; the eyes were gray and might be clear. They were level-set and not unhandsome. The two halves of the face balanced, that is to say, the right half looked as though it belonged to the left half and the whole did not seem to be made up of two halves which had strayed from their rightful mates and joined by accident. This sign of degeneracy was lacking. No, the face was normal. A twinkle in the apathetic eye would have made it pleasant and boyish, but there was no twinkle. Angus’s eyes were like
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