THE STEADFAST HEART
evasively…. That was all. But the discovery of Angus’s personableness and the remembrance of Angus’s father offset each other. The recollection was unfortunate for Angus.
Lydia’s attitude toward Angus was peculiar, and now became more so. It is doubtful if she had any clear definition in her mind of her feelings toward the young man. Undoubtedly there was friendship of a sort, tinged with condescension and with tolerance—the toleration of your aristocrat for one too lowly to be considered as impinging upon her life at all. She pitied him for his extraction, and was contemptuous of him for the same reason. On the whole she regarded him rather as a protégé than as an acquaintance or a friend.
It would be more difficult, indeed impossible, to describe Angus Burke’s sentiments toward the girl. He did not feel for her such affection as a brother would manifest toward a sister. They were too far apart for that. Friendship is a placid, smoothly flowing sentiment, very sweet, but very human and finite. There is nothing mystic, nothing occult about friendship…. In Angus Burke’s regard for Lydia was mysticism. Doubtless Angus was incapable of understanding what a queen of the fairies meant to the normal child, but, as was the fairy to the child, so, after a fashion, was Lydia to Angus;
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