He stared at her in surprise.
“Who will it look unwell to?”
“Don’t say ‘unwell,’ say ‘not well.’”
“Not well; who will see it not well?”
“Ah,” she said, shaking her head, “there is no telling who would see only too well, and that is just the trouble.”
Von Ibn knit his black brows.
“I do not understand that just,” he said, after a moment. And then he reflected further and added, “You are of an oddness so peculiar. Why must the world matter? I am my world—nothing matters to me. Vous êtes tortillante! you are afraid of stupid people and the tongues they have in them. That is your drollness. And anyway, I may go to Constance if I will. I may go anywhere if I will. You cannot prevent.”
She looked off across the lake.
“You ought to want to do what pleases me,” she suggested.
“But I do not,” he said vigorously; “I want to do what pleases me, and you must want it too,—it will be much better for America when all the women do that. I observe much, and I observe especially in particular that. An American woman is like a queen—she does her own wish always, and is always unhappy; in Europe she does her husband’s wish, and it is much better for her and very good for him, and they are very happy, and I am coming to Constance.”