d chatting together in happy company. The music
of the tizanes rose in notes of passionate ecstasy and sharp,
unexpected bursts of melody. It ceased and began again, as though the
musicians were feeling their way, and then burst out once more into
shrill defiance. It stirred Carlton with a strange turbulent unrest.
From the banks the night wind brought soft odors of fresh earth and of
heavy foliage.

"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