He is absolutely without our standards, and it is just as well for both
that he shouldn't call." Woman-like, Miss De Voe forgot that she had
said Peter was a gentleman.
If Peter had found himself a marked man in the trip up, he was doubly so
on the return train. He sat most of the time by himself, pondering on
what had happened, but he could not be unconscious of the number of
people to whom he was pointed out. He was conscious too, that his course
had not been understood, and that many of those who looked at him with
interest, did so without approbation. He was not buoyed up either, by a
sense that he had succeeded in doing the best. He had certainly hurt
Porter, and had made enemies of Maguire and Kennedy. Except for the fact
that he had tried to do right, he could see no compensating balance.
Naturally the newspapers the next morning did not cheer him, though
perhaps he cared less for what they said than he ought. He sent them,
good, bad, and indifferent, to his mother, writing her at the same time
a long letter, telling her how and why he had taken this course.
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