Where we have some long connected lines of thought and feeling, together with a wide range of differences, often irreconcilable, these people were smoothly and firmly agreed on most of the basic principles of their life; and not only agreed in principle, but accustomed for these sixty-odd generations to act on those principles.
This is one thing which we did not understand--had made no allowance for.

When in our pre-marital discussions one of those dear girls had said: "We understand it thus and thus," or "We hold such and such to be true," we men, in our own deep-seated convictions of the power of love, and our easy views about beliefs and principles, fondly imagined that we could convince them otherwise.

What we imagined, before marriage, did not matter any more than what an average innocent young girl imagines.
We found the facts to be different.
It was not that they did not love us; they did, deeply and warmly.

But there are you again--what they meant by "love" and what we meant by "love" were so different.
Perhaps it seems rather cold-blooded to say "we" and "they," as if we were not separate couples, with our separate joys and sorrows, but our positions as aliens drove us together constantly.

The whole strange experience had made our friendship more close and intimate than it would ever have become in a free and easy lifetime among our own people.
Also, as men, with our masculine tradition of far more than two thousand years, we were a unit, small but firm, against this far larger unit of feminine tradition.
I think I can make clear the points of difference without a too painful explicitness.