"I had thought, when he was leaving me, perhaps for ever, that--that his heart would be touched--that I should get a glimpse once more of the Peter he used to be.

Oh, can't you understand?
He--he's a little--hard and cold to me sometimes--God forgive me for saying so!--but you--you've been a young man too." "Yes," John said, rather sadly, "I've been young too." "It's only his age, you know," she said.

"He couldn't always be as gentle and loving as when he was a child.

A young man would think that so babyish.

He wants, as he says, to be independent, and not tied to a woman's apron-string.