The Wittelsbachs do not talk like that, but, entertaining similar sentiments, act on them more quietly, and more as a matter of course. Nor does one hear of the Wittelsbachs making their declarations of love with that dramatic directness with which, if one may trust Signor Toselli, who has not M. Giron’s instinct for reticence, Princess Louisa made hers. One does not picture a Wittelsbach putting to a comparative stranger the straight questions: “Have you ever loved?... Tell me, do you feel capable of love?” Nor could one readily credit a Wittelsbach with the naïve vanity of the following announcement of artistic aims and gifts:— “I shall write the words to your music. I feel a hitherto unused talent stirring within me. I can also do sculpture.” What wonder if Signor Toselli, being only twenty-four, was persuaded by such exclamations that all the fairy-tales were coming true? And that though he was warned. “Do you really know the Crown Princess of Saxony, sir?” said Countess Fugger to him. “Do you realise her character and the life she has led? Rather than commit such folly I would advise you to go into the garden, this very instant, and put a bullet through your brain.” But the warning fell upon deaf ears; and it is impossible to feel surprise at its having done so—not only because a child was about to be born, but also for a good many other reasons. Rank does not cease to dazzle because the high-born condescend, but often dazzles all the more effectively, by causing the lowly-born to feel at ease in their preferment, as well as proud of it. The chances of really romantic adventure, too, are rare in modern life; and a young musician is even less likely than most other young men to turn his back on them in a calculating spirit of sober self-restraint. The blaze of publicity is not a thing from which the conditions of his calling have taught him to shrink. Signor Toselli did not shrink from it, and doubtless he enjoyed his hour of rapture. He and his bride changed their names with the rapidity of genius. At the office of the London Registrar, they were, of course, Signor Toselli and Princess Louisa of Tuscany; but at the Hotel Cecil they were Signor and Signora San Marcellino, and at the Norfolk Hotel they were M. and Mme. Dubois. When they started for their honeymoon, their railway carriage was besieged by reporters; and they may well have believed that the acclamations of the world’s Press saluted their definite entrance into the joys of an earthly Paradise.