When she's there, as a rule, I DO love her.

Sometimes, when I see her just as THE WOMAN, I love her, mother; but then, when she talks and criticises, I often don't listen to her." "Yet she's as much sense as Miriam." "Perhaps; and I love her better than Miriam.

But WHY don't they hold me ?" The last question was almost a lamentation.

His mother turned away her face, sat looking across the room, very quiet, grave, with something of renunciation.
"But you wouldn't want to marry Clara ?" she said.
"No; at first perhaps I would.

But why--why don't I want to marry her or anybody?
I feel sometimes as if I wronged my women, mother." "How wronged them, my son ?" "I don't know." He went on painting rather despairingly; he had touched the quick of the trouble.
"And as for wanting to marry," said his mother, "there's plenty of time yet." "But no, mother.