Part of the time he boarded at a small hotel in the village, and part of the time he stayed with the Leverichs; rumor said that Leverich alternately turned him out or welcomed him, as he lost or renewed patience, but the relations of the two men, as seen by outsiders, always appeared to be friendly. Welcomed at the outset kindly by a society willing to forget the youthful faults of the handsome, clever boy, and let him in on probation to the outer edges of it, it was a singular fact that after all these years of apparent respectability he had made no further progress. There are men who come out of crucial youthful experiences with a certain inner purity untouched; with an added reverence for goodness, and a strength of character all the greater for the sheer effort of retrieval; whose eyes are forever ashamed when they look back on the sins that were extraneous to the true nature, leaving it, save for the painful scars, clean and whole. With poor Lawson there had been, perhaps, some inherent flaw in which the poison lodged, to a deterioration, however delicate, of the whole tissue. It is strange—or, rather, it is not strange—that, in spite of respectability of life, with nothing whatever that was tangible to contravene it, this should have been thing each person is bound to make, irresponsive of what felt of Lawson Barr. An individual impression is the one he does, and the combined judgment of the members of an intelligent suburban community is very keen as to character, no matter how it differs in regard to actions. The standard of morality in such a section is high—it may indulge occasionally in the witticisms and literature of a lower scale, but in social relations the lesser order must go. “Shadiness” is damning. Lawson was not exactly “shady,” but he might be. No girl was ever supposed to fall in love with him, and a young man who was seen too intimately with him received a sort of reflected obloquy. Strangers whom he impressed favorably always asked, as Dosia did, “Why, what has he _done_?” And received the same reply Lois gave her: “Oh, nothing.” “Isn’t he—nice?” “Yes, nice enough, as far as that goes. He can’t seem to make a living; I don’t know why—he’s clever enough. There’s really nothing against him though, except that he was wild when he was a boy. I have heard that when he goes away on trips he—drinks. But Justin wouldn’t like me to say it; he hates to have people talked about in this way. Still—it’s just as well that you should know all about him.” “Oh, yes,” said Dosia, in a tone personifying clear intelligence, yet in reality mystified. She felt at once indignant at the imputations thrown on Mr. Barr, and yet a little ashamed of having liked him, as something in bad taste.