Peter was not good-looking. He was not even, in a sense, attractive. In
spite of his taking work so hardly and life so seriously, he was
entirely too stout. This gave a heaviness to his face that neutralized
his really pleasant brown eyes and thick brown hair, which were his best
features. Manly the face was, but, except when speaking in unconscious
moments, dull and unstriking. A fellow three inches shorter, and
two-thirds his weight would have been called tall. "Big" was the
favorite adjective used in describing Peter, and big he was. Had he gone
through college ten years later, he might have won unstinted fame and
admiration as the full-back on the team, or stroke on the crew. In his
time, athletics were but just obtaining, and were not yet approved of
either by faculties or families. Shakespeare speaks of a tide in the
affairs of men. Had Peter been born ten years later the probabilities
are that his name would have been in all the papers, that he would have
weighed fifty pounds less, have been cheered by thousands, have been the
idol of his class, have been a hero, have married the first girl he
loved (for heroes, curiously, either marry or die, but never remain
bachelors) and would have--but as this is a tale of fact, we must not
give rein to imagination. 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.