He was not in love with her. Affection, gratitude, the natural reactions to the unqualified devotion of a lively young cousin who was also a queen--such feelings possessed him, but the ardours of reciprocal passion were not his. Though he found that he liked Victoria very much, what immediately interested him in his curious position was less her than himself. Dazzled and delighted, riding, dancing, singing, laughing, amid the splendours of Windsor, he was aware of a new sensation--the stirrings of ambition in his breast. His place would indeed be a high, an enviable one! And then, on the instant, came another thought. The teaching of religion, the admonitions of Stockmar, his {105} own inmost convictions, all spoke with the same utterance. He would not be there to please himself, but for a very different purpose--to do good. He must be 'noble, manly, and princely in all things,' he would have 'to live and to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his new country,' to 'use his powers and endeavours for a great object--that of promoting the welfare of multitudes of his fellow-men.' One serious thought led on to another. The wealth and the bustle of the English Court might be delightful for the moment, but, after all, it was Coburg that had his heart. 'While I shall be untiring,' he wrote to his grandmother, 'in my efforts and labours for the country to which I shall in future belong, and where I am called to so high a position, I shall never cease _ein treuer Deutscher, Coburger, Gothaner zu sein_.' And now he must part from Coburg for ever! Sobered and sad, he sought relief in his brother Ernest's company; the two young men would shut themselves up together, and, sitting down at the pianoforte, would escape from the present and the future in the sweet familiar gaiety of a Haydn duet.[12]