“I asked you, madame, whether you had any objection to tobacco smoke?”
With an angry look she replied, “Che mi fa!”
She had neither turned her head nor looked at me, and I really did not know whether to take this “What do I care” for an authorization, a refusal, a real sign of indifference, or for a mere “Let me alone.”
“Madame,” I replied, “if you mind the smell of tobacco in the least—”
She again said, “Mica,” in a tone which seemed to mean, “I wish to goodness you would leave me alone!” It was, however, a kind of permission, so I said to Paul:
“You may smoke.”
He looked at me in that curious sort of way that people have when they try to understand others who are talking in a strange language before them, and asked me:
“What did you say to her?”
“I asked whether we might smoke, and she said we might do whatever we liked.”
Whereupon I lighted my cigar.