That was all.

She never had the least illusion about herself, nor any hope of raising herself to his social level.

She was far too much the real peasant girl for that, the descendant of thirty or more generations of serfs, the offspring of men and women who had felt that they belonged body and soul to the feudal lord of the land on which they were born, and had never been disturbed by tempting dreams of liberty, equality, fraternity, and the violent destruction of ladies and gentlemen.
So she lived, and so she learned many things of Settimia, and looked upon herself as the absolute property of the man she loved and had saved; and she was perfectly happy, if not perfectly good.
"When I am of age," Marcello used to say, "I shall buy a beautiful little palace near the Tiber, and you shall live in it." "Why ?" she always asked.

"Are we not happy here?
Is it not cool in summer, and sunny in winter?
Have we not all we want?
When you marry, your wife will live in the splendid villa on the Janiculum, and when you are tired of her, you will come and see Regina here.

I hope you will always be tired of her.