She had neither turned her head nor looked at me, and I really did not know whether to take this "What does it matter to me" for an authorization, a refusal, a real sign of indifference, or for a mere "Leave me alone."
"Madame," I replied, "if you mind the smell of tobacco in the least—"
She again said, "Mica,"[8] in a tone of voice 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 can 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 if we might smoke, and she said we might do whatever we liked."
Whereupon I lighted my cigar.
"Did she not say anything more?"
"If you had counted her words you would have noticed that she used exactly six, two of which gave me to understand that she knew no French, so four remained, and a lot can be said in four words."