"Of course, yes—while your head is hot with this fancy. Yes, you have probably thought a hundred times, at least, this very day. Listen to me, my dear boy, and do what I tell you. Go away to Paris, or London, or Vienna, for a fortnight, and then come back and tell me what you think about it. Will you not do that—to please me?"
"But why?" objected Marcantonio, looking very uncomfortable, for he hated to refuse his sister anything. "Seriously, why should I not marry her? Is there anything against her? If there is, tell me."
Donna Diana rose rather wearily and went to the window.
"I wish you would abandon the whole idea," she said. "I am quite sure you will repent when it is too late. I do not believe in these young girls who occupy themselves with philosophy and the good of the human race. Politics—well, we all have a finger in politics; but this dreadful progressive thought—it is turning the world upside down."
"Oh—it is the philosophy that you do not like about her? Well, my dear sister, that is exactly what I think so interesting. This young English Hypatia"—
"Hypatia, indeed!" cried Donna Diana rather scornfully.
"Yes. Is she not learned?"
"Perhaps."
"And beautiful?"
"No,—certainly not. She is simply a little pretty."