Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/339

, now closed tightly. He became a machine, emotionless, efficient…. That was all that remained. He had locked up his soul.

Early in the spring Henry G. Woodhouse took him into the firm as junior partner. Angus was grateful, showed his gratitude to the best of his constricted ability, but he could take no real pleasure in what would have been a tremendous joy to him a few months before…. It is not strange that his friends worried for him.

For a time he had avoided even Dave Wilkins, until he saw how that conduct hurt his friend. During those days he relied upon Bishwhang for companionship as he had done in the old days. The human side of him seemed to have relapsed a dozen years…. In those first days Bishwhang had been the stronger of the two; his love had watched over Angus, his clumsy hand had guided, his silence had comforted, and his solicitude had, perhaps, saved Angus…. During these hours Angus was building a wall of reserve behind which he was to hide, and not even Dave Wilkins was permitted to have a full view of what those walls contained.

He accepted his father’s presence and his father’s malice phlegmatically—perhaps wondering now and then at the man’s malicious vagaries…. One phase of his father’s conduct did puzzle him, and that was the man’s apparent