At dinner he sat in gloomy silence, disregarding his friend's pleasant, low-voiced gossip concerning old friends in Rock River.
After Jack left the hotel Harold went to his room and took a look at himself in the glass.

He was concerned to see of what manner of man he really was.

He was not well-satisfied with himself; his face and hands were too brown and leathery, and when he thought of his failure as a rancher his brow darkened.

He was as far from being a cattle king as when he wrote that boyish letter four years before, and he had sense enough to know that a girl of Mary's grace and charm does not lack for suitors.

"Probably she is engaged or married," he thought.