"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.
"I beg yours," she said. "It was only the incongruity that struck me.
It seemed so odd to be quoting Shenandoah here in the Dardanelles, with
these queer people below us and ancient Troy on one hand--it took me by
surprise, that's all. Please go on. What was it impressed you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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