To come back to realism, Peter was a hero to nobody but his mother.
Such was the man, who, two weeks after graduation from Harvard, was pacing up and down the deck of Mr.Pierce's yacht, the "Sunrise," as she drifted with the tide in Long Island Sound.

Yet if his expression, as he walked, could for a moment have been revealed to those seated aft, the face that all thought dull and uninteresting would have riveted their attention, and set each one questioning whether there might not be something both heroic and romantic underneath.

The set determination of his look can best be explained by telling what had given his face such rigid lines..