“The music of different countries,” Carlton said at last, “means many different things.  But it seems to me that the music of Hungary is the music of love.”

Miss Morris crossed her arms comfortably on the rail, and he heard her laugh softly.  “Oh no, it is not,” she said, undisturbed.  “It is a passionate, gusty, heady sort of love, if you like, but it’s no more like the real thing than burgundy is like clear, cold, good water.  It’s not the real thing at all.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Carlton, meekly.

“Of course I don’t know anything about it.”  He had been waked out of the spell which the night and the tizanes had placed upon him as completely as though some one had shaken him sharply by the shoulder.  “I bow,” he said, “to your superior knowledge.  I know nothing about it.”

“No; you are quite right.  I don’t believe you do know anything about it,” said the girl, “or you wouldn’t have made such a comparison.”

“Do you know, Miss Morris,” said Carlton, seriously, “that I believe I’m not able to care for a woman as other men do—­at least as some men do; it’s just lacking in me, and always will be lacking.  It’s like an ear for music; if you haven’t got it, if it isn’t born in you, you’ll never have it.  It’s not a thing you can cultivate, and I feel that it’s not only a misfortune, but a fault.  Now I honestly believe that I care more for the Princess Aline, whom I have never met, than many other men could care for her if they knew her well; but what they feel would last, and I have doubts from past experience that what I feel would.  I don’t doubt it while it exists, but it never does exist long, and so I am afraid it is going to be with me to the end of the chapter.”  He paused for a moment, but the girl did not answer.  “I am speaking in earnest now,” he added, with a rueful laugh.

“I see you are,” she replied, briefly.  She seemed to be considering his condition as he had described it to her, and he did not interrupt her.  From below them came the notes of the waltz the gypsies played.  It was full of the undercurrent of sadness that a waltz should have, and filled out what Carlton said as the music from the orchestra in a theatre heightens the effect without interrupting the words of the actor on the stage.

“It is strange,” said Miss Morris.  “I should have thought you were a man who would care very much and in just the right way.  But I don’t believe really—­I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you do know what love means at all.”

“Oh, it isn’t as bad as that,” said Carlton.  “I think I know what it is, and what it means to other people, but I can’t feel it myself.  The best idea I ever got of it—­the thing that made it clear to me—­was a line in a play.  It seemed to express it better than any of the love-poems I ever read.  It was in Shenandoah.”

Miss Morris laughed.

“I beg your pardon,” said Carlton.