"Teach me to be modern."
She gave a nervous laugh:
"Oh, don't let us talk like this! You want to know my advice. I advise you not to marry Urania."
"Why not?"
"Because you would both of you have a wretched life. She is a dear little American parvenue...."
"I am offering her what I possess; she is offering me what she possesses...."
He nibbled at the chocolates. She shrugged her shoulders:
"Then marry her," she said, with indifference.
"Tell me that you don't want me to and I won't."
"And your father? And the marchesa?"