A flower crushed under the foot, eh?
You just listen to me, my boy.

You and me figure to be pretty hard, don't we?
Well, soft pine stacked up agin' quartzite, is what we are compared to Kate." Lee Haines gaped at him, too astonished to be angry.

He suggested softening of the brain to Buck, but the latter waved aside the implications.
"Now, supposin' Kate was one of these dark girls with eyes like black diamonds and a lot of snap and zip to her.

If she was like that I s'pose you'd figure her to forget all about Dan inside of a month--and maybe marry you ?" "You be damned!" "Maybe I am.

Them hard, snappy lookin' girls are the ones that smash.
They're brittle, that's why; but you take a soft lookin' girl like Kate, maybe she ain't a diamond point to cut glass, but she's tempered steel that'll bend, and bend, and bend, and then when you wait for it to break it flips up and knocks you down.