Now that I looked at him closely I commenced
to see why his face and personality had attracted me so strongly.
There was much of his mother's incomparable beauty in his clear-cut
features, but it was strongly masculine beauty, and his grey eyes
and the expression of them were mine.
The boy stood facing me, half hope and half uncertainty in his
look.
"Tell me of your mother," I said. "Tell me all you can of the years
that I have been robbed by a relentless fate of her dear companionship."
With a cry of pleasure he sprang toward me and threw his arms
about my neck, and for a brief moment as I held my boy close to
me the tears welled to my eyes and I was like to have choked after
the manner of some maudlin fool--but I do not regret it, nor am I
ashamed. A long life has taught me that a man may seem weak where
women and children are concerned and yet be anything but a weakling
in the sterner avenues of life.
"Your stature, your manner, the terrible ferocity of your
swordsmanship," said the boy, "are as my mother has described them
to me a thousand times--but even with such evidence I could scarce
credit the truth of what seemed so improbable to me, however
much I desired it to be true. Do you know what thing it was that
convinced me more than all the others?"
"What, my boy?" I asked.
"Your first words to me--they were of my mother.
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