To Bibbs's knowledge, no one and nothing had ever prevented his father from carrying through his plans, once he had determined upon them; and Sheridan was incapable of believing that any plan of his would not work out according to his calculations.

His nature unfitted him to accept failure.

He had the gift of terrible persistence, and with unflecked confidence that his way was the only way he would hold to that way of "making a man" of Bibbs, who understood very well, in his passive and impersonal fashion, that it was a way which might make, not a man, but dust of him.

But he had no shudder for the thought.
He had no shudder for that thought or for any other thought.

The truth about Bibbs was in the poem which Edith had adopted: he had so thoroughly formed the over-sensitive habit of hiding his feelings that no doubt he had forgotten--by this time--where he had put some of them, especially those which concerned himself.