"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. Here is love's universal, deathless song, written or sung to-day and by lovers long, long forgotten,
'Whoever loved like thou and I,
No lovers ever loved as we!'"
"Nor did they, sir!" I maintained doggedly. "My love for Diana is a thing wholly apart, an inspiration to all things good and great."
"Then prove this, my egoist, prove it!"
"But sir—sir," I stammered, nonplussed by his words and the piercing look that accompanied them, "how—in what manner would you have me do this?"
"By forgetting yourself in your love for her! By foregoing awhile your present joys for her future good. Give her into my care for two years."
"My lord!" I exclaimed aghast. "I—indeed I do not understand."