He always says just what he thinks, and never pays anyone even the least bit of a compliment.
How can you fall in love with a man like that?
Of course you can love him like a brother--and I do love Francisco as if he were my brother--but I don't think we should have got further than that, if he had been ever so old." "And does Francis never pay you compliments, Giulia ?" "Never!" Giulia said decidedly.

"It would be hateful of him if he did." "But Maria doesn't object to compliments, Giulia.

She looks for them as if they were her daily bread-- "Don't you, Maria-- "You will have to learn to put up with them soon, Giulia, for you will be out in society now, and the young men will crowd round your chair, just as they have done round that of this little flirt, your sister." "I shall have to put up with it, I suppose," Giulia said quietly, "just as one puts up with other annoyances.

But I should certainly never get to care for anyone who thinks so little of me, as to believe that I could be pleased by being addressed in such terms." "From which I gather," Giustiniani said, smiling, "that this English lad's bluntness of speech pleases you more than it does Maria ?" "It pleases Maria, too," Giulia said, "though she may choose to say that it doesn't.

And I don't think it quite right to discuss him at all, when we all owe him as much as we do." Giustiniani glanced at Maria and gave a little significant nod.
"I do not think Giulia regards Francisco in quite the brotherly way that you do, Maria," he whispered presently to her.
"Perhaps not," Maria answered.