“What?”
“Passion, it’s the only reality.”
“The favoured mortal is always a young man,” remarked the Commendatore Gabrielli, his mouth twitching with a nervous tic to which he was subject.
“But that is not my ideal,” replied the enchanting voice of Giovanna.... “I have always felt a tacit contempt for those idlers, deficient alike in character and talent, who waste their youth and their fortune on gambling and horses and other less worthy pursuits....” She pretended to blush behind her fan.
“Well, Signora Giovanna, you are perhaps right. But a reformed rake makes a good husband.”
“I do not think so, Commendatore; with all due deference, I am not of your opinion. Think of Angela Toraldo’s husband; what a pearl! I hear that if she weeps or complains he boxes her ears. A horror! These young husbands are brutes. Look at Andrea Lieti! how roughly he must treat that poor little Caterina...! While with a man of mature age....”
“Has this often occurred to you, Signora Giovanna?”
“Always.... A grave man who takes life seriously; who lives up to a political idea....”
“You would know how to grace a political salon,” he murmured, gazing at her.