"But what?"
"I dare say you're right, only—; only it's not just like an English peer, you know."
"The privilege of succession is the same."
"He never could sit in the House of Lords, my dear."
"Of course not. He would assume only what is his own. Why should he be ashamed to take an Italian title any more than his friend Lord Hampstead is to take an English one? It is not as though it would prevent his living here. Many foreign noblemen live in England."
"I suppose he could live here," said Mrs. Vincent as though she were making a great admission. "I don't think that there would be any law to turn him out of the country."
"Nor out of the Post Office, if he chooses to remain there," said Mrs. Roden.
"I don't know how that may be."
"Even if they did, I should prefer that it should be so. According to my thinking, no man should fling away a privilege that is his own, or should be ashamed of assuming a nobility that belongs to him. If not for his own sake, he should do it for the sake of his children. He at any rate has nothing to be ashamed of in the name. It belonged to his father and to his grandfather, and to his ancestors through many generations. Think how men fight for a title in this country; how they struggle for it when there is a doubt as to who may properly have inherited it! Here there is no doubt. Here there need be no struggle." Convinced by the weight of this argument Mrs. Vincent gave in her adhesion, and at last expressed an opinion that her cousin should at once call himself by his father's name.