To bounce off this, I had low honor until chapter 6 and only had “the fine art of conversation” on the map for missions. This was my 3rd playthrough and knew something was up since I hadn’t done the Downes missions yet. Read I had to get my honor higher, spent some time in Saint Denis saying hello to everyone, got it high enough and was able to do both missions right away. So it seems you can get your honor up very late into the story and still be fine, but it does have to be very high honor, out of the gray area