Although my grandfather had made his fortune in trade, I had been educated as a gentleman and at first I expected Flora society to accept me as such. After a youth spent in Paris and Vienna, I was anyone's equal in deportment. My attire, always elegant without flashiness, had elsewhere disarmed the stuffiest arbiters. So when with a lover's shyness I followed the Lady Celia into the Contessa di Filipini's salon at Flora, I was not expecting difficulties from the threadbare remnants of aristocracy which infested that small city. I took no special notice of Prospero until the night he shattered my life.