'Mr. Richmond, permit me to apologize to you. I have to congratulate you, it appears. I was not aware.—However, the princess has done me the favour to enlighten me. How you will manage, I can't guess, but that is not my affair. I am a man of honour; and, on my honour, I conceived that I was invited here to decide, as my habit is, on the spot, if I would, or if I would not. I speak clearly to you, no doubt. There could be no hesitation in the mind of a man of sense. My way is prompt and blunt; I am sorry I gave you occasion to reflect on it. There! I have been deceived—deceived myself, let's say. Sharp methods play the devil with you now and then. To speak the truth,—perhaps you won't care to listen to it,—family arrangements are the best; take my word for it, they are the best. And in the case of princesses of the Blood!—Why, look you, I happen to be suitable. It's a matter of chance, like your height, complexion, constitution. One is just what one is born to be, eh? You have your English notions, I my German; but as a man of the world in the bargain, and “gentleman,” I hope, I should say, that to take a young princess's fancy, and drag her from her station is not—of course, you know that the actual value of the title goes if she steps down? Very well. But enough said; I thought I was in a clear field. We are used to having our way cleared for us, nous autres. I will not detain you.' We saluted gravely, and I rode on at a mechanical pace, discerning by glimpses the purport of what I had heard, without drawing warmth from it. The man's outrageously royal way of wooing, in contempt of minor presences and flimsy sentiment, made me jealous of him, notwithstanding his overthrow.