“I don’t care whether it is known or not,” Clifford rejoined. “But I don’t want people looking at me.”
“A young man of your importance ought to learn to bear observation—to carry himself as if he were quite indifferent to it. I won’t say, exactly, unconscious,” the Baroness explained. “No, he must seem to know he is observed, and to think it natural he should be; but he must appear perfectly used to it. Now you haven’t that, Clifford; you haven’t that at all. You must have that, you know. Don’t tell me you are not a young man of importance,” Eugenia added. “Don’t say anything so flat as that.”
“Oh, no, you don’t catch me saying that!” cried Clifford.
“Yes, you must come to Germany,” Madame Münster continued. “I will show you how people can be talked about, and yet not seem to know it. You will be talked about, of course, with me; it will be said you are my lover. I will show you how little one may mind that—how little I shall mind it.”
Clifford sat staring, blushing and laughing. “I shall mind it a good deal!” he declared.
“Ah, not too much, you know; that would be uncivil. But I give you leave to mind it a little; especially if you have a passion for Miss Acton. Voyons; as regards that, you either have or you have not. It is very simple to say it.”
“I don’t see why you want to know,” said Clifford.
“You ought to want me to know. If one is arranging a marriage, one tells one’s friends.”
“Oh, I’m not arranging anything,” said Clifford.
“You don’t intend to marry your cousin?”