“My dear child, why are you upsetting yourself like this? You’ve achieved your ideal. Your marriage is as good as certain. You’re waiting for an answer from Chicago? You’re impatient? Then cable out. I should have cabled at once in your place. You don’t imagine, do you, that your father has any objection to your becoming Duchess di San Stefano?”
“I don’t know yet what I myself want,” said Urania, weeping. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Cornélie shrugged her shoulders:
“You’re more sensible than I thought,” she said.
“Are you really my friend? Can I trust you? Can I trust your advice?”
“I won’t advise you again. I have advised you. You must know your own mind.”
Urania took her hand:
“Which would you prefer, that I accepted Gilio ... or not?”
Cornélie looked her straight in the eyes:
“You’re making yourself unhappy about nothing. You think—and the marchesa probably thinks with you—that I want to take Gilio from you? No, darling, I wouldn’t marry Gilio if he were king and emperor. I have a bit of the socialist in me: I don’t marry for the sake of a title.”