ngland, and grew to be a big count,
and married an Englishwoman, and had a son, and died. He was adopted
by his mother's brother, an English country gentleman, who, surviving
him, and being a bachelor, adopted his son in turn. The son, however,
dropped his title of Count, a title more than seven hundred years old,
and assumed the name of his benevolent great-uncle. I 'm not sure,"
she reflected, "that I quite approve of his dropping that magnificent
old title."

"Oh, he very likely found it an encumbrance, living in England, as an
Englishman--especially if he was n't very rich," said Anthony. "He
very likely felt that it rendered him rather uncomfortably conspicuous.
Besides, a man does n't actually _drop_ a title--he merely puts it in
his pocket--he can always take it out again. You don't, I suppose," he
asked, with a skilfully-wrought semblance of indifference, "happen to
remember the name that he assumed?"

"Of course, I happen to remember it," replied Susanna. "As you must
perceive, the history of Sampaolo is a matter I have studied somewhat
profoundly. How could I forget so salient a fact as that? The name
that he assumed," she said, her air elaborately detached, "was Craford."

But Anthony evinced not the slightest sign of a sensation.

"Craford?" he repeated. "Ah, indeed? That is a good name, a good old
south-country Saxon name."

"Yes," agreed Susanna; "but it is not so good as Antonio Francesco
Guido Maria Valdeschi della Spina, Conte di Sampaolo."

"It is not so long, at any rate," said he.

"Nor so full of colour," supplemented she.

"As I hinted before, a name like a herald's tabard might be something
of an inconvenience in work-a-day England," he returned. Then he
smiled, rather sorrily. "So you 've known all there was to be known
from the beginning, and my laborious dissimulation has been useless?"

"Not useless," she consoled him, her eyes mirthfully meeting his. "It
has amused me hugely."

"You've--if you don't mind the expression--you've jolly well taken me
in," he owned, with a laconic laugh.

"Yes," laughed she, her chin in the air.

And for a few minutes they walked on without speaking.

The wind buffetted their faces, it wafted stray locks of hair about
Susanna's temples, it smelt of the sea and the rain-clouds, though it
could not blow away the nearer, friendlier smell of the wet earth, nor
the sweetness of the clover and wild thyme. All round them,
sand-martins perfor