"You, alone, can use those words, and not excite my anger," said
Hendrickson.

"Forgive me if they have fallen upon your ears unpleasantly."

"A rival, Mrs. Denison!" the young man spoke proudly. "That is
something _I_ will never have. The woman's heart that can warm under
the smile of another man, is nothing to me."

"You are somewhat romantic, Paul, in your notions about matrimony.
You forget that women are 'only' women."

"But I do _not_ forget, Mrs. Denison, that as you have so often said
to me, there are true marriages in which the parties are drawn
towards each other by sexual affinities peculiar to themselves; and
that a union in such cases, is the true union by which they become,
in the language of inspiration, 'one flesh.' I can enter into none
other. When I first met Jessie Loring, a spirit whispered to me--was
it a lying spirit?--a spirit whispered to me--'the beautiful
complement of your life!' I believed on the instant. In that I may
have been romantic."

"Perhaps not!" said Mrs. Denison.

Hendrickson looked into her face steadily for some moments, and then
said--

"It was an illusion."