l to
the kite. He had been in the service some two years by now, and those
who knew him well rather wondered at his sedative turn of mind. Two
years in any one place was not in reckoning as regarded Carmichael; yet,
here he was, caring neither for promotion nor exchange. So, then, all
logical deductions simmered down to one: _Cherchez la femme_.
He knew that his case would never be tried in court nor settled out of
it; and he realized that it would be far better to weigh anchor and set
his course for other parts. But no man ever quite forsakes his
dream-woman; and he had endued a princess with all the shining
attributes of an angel, when, had he known it, she was only angelic.
The dreamer is invariably tripping over his illusions; and Carmichael
was rather boyish in his dreams. What absurd romances he was always
weaving round her! What exploits on her behalf! But never anything
happened, and never was the grand duke called upon to offer his
benediction.
It was all very foolish and romantic and impossible, and no one
recognized this more readily than he. No American ever married a
princess of a reigning house, and no American ever will. This law is as
immovable as the law of gravitation. Still, man is master of his dreams,
and he may do as he pleases in the confines of this small circle.
Outside these temporary lapses, Carmichael was a keen, shrewd,
far-sighted young man, close-lipped and observant, never forgetting
faces, never forgetting benefits, loving a fight but never provoking
one. So he and the world were friends. Diplomacy has its synonym in
tact, and he was an able tactician, for all that an Irishman is
generally likened to a bull in a china-shop.
"How the deuce will it end?"--musing half aloud. "I'll forget myself
some day and trip so hard that they'll be asking Washington for my
recall. I'll go over to the gardens and listen to the band. They are
playing dirges to-night, and anything funereal will be a light and happy
tonic to my present state of mind."
He was
Notka biograficzna
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