"I also," said the Tsigane. "It is always the same thing."
"Where can true love be found to-day?" cried the Dane.
Lucie protested against this atrocious blasphemy, but the Tsigane replied imperturbably:--
"You will grant that the times of chivalrous love have vanished. Only the turtle-doves are innocent enough to sigh still. Formerly, as we are told, humanity passed through a long epoch of exalted love. Today men have almost abandoned these ways. A hundred years from now they will laugh at such love-stories and wonder how it could have been. I speak of such loves as those of Leander and Hero, not that of Calypso for young and handsome warriors, nor of the love of Nero for Poppea. That kind of love lasts because it is natural. But love which is torture, which suffers for some ideal beauty, it is an old, stereotyped plate, out of fashion. Show me to-day some one who loves in this way or who would be disposed to make serious sacrifices for love. The young girls marry because the husband suits the father and mother. The men marry for settlements, or for charms more or less fascinating. They do not marry at all for love,--that fantasy has gone out of fashion."
"Why," said Lucie indignantly, "you cannot maintain such ridiculous assertions."
"I can prove them by facts. Look around you. Everywhere caprice, passion, love of excitement, etc., but true love nowhere."
Lucie sighed.
"Is this progress or decadence?" asked she.
"I know not. It is sad for you beautiful women to descend from the pedestal on which you were elevated, but how can you refuse the evidence of things?"
"Is it so evident?"