From outside came the dull rumbling of the dispersing crowd.

The mayor, the first to break the silence, murmured a platitude.
Paul thanked him gravely.

Then he went to Wilson.

"Forgive me," said he, "for all that has been amiss with me to-day.

It has been a strain of a very peculiar kind." "I can well imagine it," said Wilson.
"You see I'm not an aristocrat, after all," said Paul.
Wilson looked the young man in the face and saw the steel beneath the dark eyes, and the Proud setting of the lips.