How she had come to concoct such a name for herself it would be difficult to explain.

Her father had been christened Vesey as another man is christened Thomas, and she had no more right to assume it than would have the daughter of a Mr.Josiah Jones to call herself Mrs.Josiah Smith, on marrying a man of the latter name.

The gold coronet was equally out of place, and perhaps inserted with even less excuse.

Paulo Neroni had had not the faintest title to call himself a scion of even Italian nobility.

Had the pair met in England Neroni would probably have been a count, but they had met in Italy, and any such pretence on his part would have been simply ridiculous.