So they are wed (to the infinite wonder of their
relations) and hence the perpetuation of the species."
"My lord, you grow a little cynical, I think," said I, "surely Love
has dowered these apparently so ordinary people with a vision to
behold in each other virtues and beauties undreamed of by the world in
general. Surely Love possesses the only seeing eye?"
"The Greeks thought differently, Peregrine, or wherefore their
blindfolded Eros?"
"Sir, the mind of man has soared since those far times, I venture to
think?"
"Perhaps!" said his lordship, shaking his head. "But love between man
and woman is much the same, a power to ennoble or debase, angel of
light or demon of hell, a thing befouled and shamed by brutish
selfishness or glorified by sacrifice. Yes, love is to-day as it was
when mighty Babylon worshipped Bel. Yesterday, to-day and for ever,
love was, is, and will be the same--the call of nature coming to each
of us through the senses to the soul for evil or for good."
"But, my lord," said I, stirred beyond myself, "ah, sir, be love what
it may--no two ever loved as Diana and I, so truly, so deeply--"
"O my lovely, loving lover--O sublime egoist!" exclaimed my companion.
"How many other lovers through the ages have thought and said and
written the very same?
'Others may have loved mayhap,
But never, oh, never as thou and I.'
"This is the song of all the amorists of all the ages. Man has been
saying this since ever he was man.
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