Yes, it was hopeless.

Every time that Pupkin watched Zena praying in church, he knew that
she was too good for him. Every time that he came to call for her and
found her reading Browning and Omar Khayyam he knew that she was too
clever for him. And every time that he saw her at all he realized
that she was too beautiful for him.

You see, Pupkin knew that he wasn't a hero. When Zena would clasp her
hands and talk rapturously about crusaders and soldiers and firemen
and heroes generally, Pupkin knew just where he came in. Not in it,
that was all. If a war could have broken out in Mariposa, or the
judge's house been invaded by the Germans, he might have had a
chance, but as it was--hopeless.

Then there was Zena's father. Heaven knows Pupkin tried hard to
please the judge. He agreed with every theory that Judge Pepperleigh
advanced, and that took a pretty pliable intellect in itself. They
denounced female suffrage one day and they favoured it the next. One
day the judge would claim that the labour movement was eating out the
heart of the country, and the next day he would hold that the hope of
the world lay in the organization of the toiling masses. Pupkin
shifted his opinions like the glass in a kaleidoscope. Indeed, the
only things on which he was allowed to maintain a steadfast
conviction were the purity of the Conservative party of Canada and
the awful wickedness of the recall of judges.

But with all that the judge was hardly civil to Pupkin. He hadn't
asked him to the house till Zena brought him there, though, as a