You used to be so--so gentle and nice." "Hard! I?
Yes, Mel, perhaps I am--hard as war, hard as modern life, hard as my old friends, my little sister----" he broke off.
"Daren, do not mock me," she entreated.

"I should not have said hard.
But you're strange to me--a something terrible flashes from you.

Yet it's only in glimpses....

Forgive me, Daren, I didn't mean hard." Lane drew her down upon the couch so that she faced him, and he did not release her hand.
"Mel, I'm softer than a jelly-fish," he said.

"I've no bone, no fiber, no stamina, no substance.