He was decided.
"I am a brute, Ada," he said, "or, at least, I have to be brutal.

We do care for each other in a certain way, and we have found together many of the good things in living, but we are not lovers in the greater sense.

We never could be.

It means much.

It means a knitting together of lives, a oneness, a confluence of soul and heart and passions, and a disposition to sacrifice, if need be.