The invaluable Settimia knew her way about, and spoke French with a fluency that amazed Marcello; she even taught Regina a few of those phrases which are particularly useful at a dressmaker's and quite incomprehensible anywhere else.

Marcello told her to see that Regina was perfectly dressed, and Settimia carried out his instructions with taste and wisdom.

Regina had arrived in Paris with one box of modest dimensions; she left with four more, of a size that made the railway porters stagger.
One day Marcello brought home a string of pearls in his pocket, and tried to fasten it round her throat; but she would not let him do it.
She was angry.
"Keep those things for your wife!" she said, with flashing eyes and standing back from him.

"I will wear the clothes you buy for me, because you like me to be pretty and I don't want you to be ashamed of me.

But I will not take jewels, for jewels are money, just as gold is! You can buy a wife with that stuff, not a woman who loves you!" Her brows were level and stern, her face grew whiter as she spoke, and Marcello was suddenly aware, for the first time in his life, that he did not understand women.