How could we be aloner ?" This was all very true.

We had our pleasant mutual solitude about our work, and our pleasant evening talks in their apartments or ours; we had, as it were, all the pleasures of courtship carried right on; but we had no sense of--perhaps it may be called possession.
"Might as well not be married at all," growled Terry.

"They only got up that ceremony to please us--please Jeff, mostly.

They've no real idea of being married." I tried my best to get Ellador's point of view, and naturally I tried to give her mine.

Of course, what we, as men, wanted to make them see was that there were other, and as we proudly said "higher," uses in this relation than what Terry called "mere parentage." In the highest terms I knew I tried to explain this to Ellador.
"Anything higher than for mutual love to hope to give life, as we did ?" she said.