licity of his methods. Two things I never suspected: that love is the
kind of romantic exegesis you represent it to be, or that every lover,
psychically, is a sort of twin phenomenon--that he is _two_ men instead of
one! And after he is married, I suppose he will be a domestic _trinity_,
but with his godhead concerned with the affairs of the world at large. I
am awed by the revelation; still, it excuses much in my conduct that I had
before felt was reprehensible; for I have scarcely faced my own reflection
in the glass since my ignominious capitulation. Something within charged
treachery against poor Jessica. But if there are _two_ of you, and only
_one_ of me, that fact gives a new and honourable complexion to my part in
the transaction.

However, the way you have multiplied yourself and doubled forces upon me
may be good masculine tactics, but I am sure it is an unparliamentary
advantage you have taken. For you have not only posed as a lover, but with
the cunning words of a logician you prove what seemed wrong to be really a
sublime right; and what _I_ charged as selfishness, _you_ call "a prayer."
I am confused by your argument; it seems incontestable. But do you know,
my Philip, that a woman's convictions are never reached by a mere
argument? For they are hidden in her heart, not in her little bias-fold
mind. And so, in spite of your sweet reasoning with me, and the assumption
you make of omniscience concerning me, my convictions remain. Only, now, I
do not know whether I cherish them against you or against the God who made
me simple and you double.

But granting all you say to be true, that every man has a personal life
and at the same time a universal life energy as well, that there is in him
a little domestic fortress of love, and a battle power of life
apart,--admitting all this, how do you reconcile justice with the fact
that you frankly offer only half of your duality for all of Jessica? Have
you never suspected that she also has fair kingdoms of thought apart from
your science of her? My Prophet, it is you who have discovered them to me!
Love has added a sweet Canaan to my little hemisphere. I have heard
invisible birds singing, I have trysted with spirits of the air since I
knew you. And I have felt the pangs of a consciousness in me so new and so
tender, that I am no longer merely the maid you know, but, dear Master, I
am some one else, near and kin to you as life and spirit are kin! What is
this strange wh