"Both my business and my habit of mind have taught me to observe
and study men's motives and impulses very closely. You could order
a suitable dinner after leaving the studio, could you not?"
"Yes, father."
"Well, then, my Princess Ida, I'll be your grand vizier, and I'll
treat with this foreign power with such a fine diplomacy that he
shall appreciate all the privileges he obtains. But we will keep
our self-respect hereafter, Ida, and then we can look the world in
the face and ask no odds of it."
"Yes, father, let us keep that at all events. And yet I'm only a
woman."
"You are the woman that has made me happy, and I think there is
another man who will want to be made happy also. And now we will
defer all other questions of the day, for I must go out for a time.
Do not think I undervalue your craving for information, and you
shall have it as fast as you can take care of it. You have grown
pale and thin this summer, but I do not expect you to become plump
and rosy again in a day."
"Oh, I'm rosy too often as it is. Why is it that girls must blush
so ridiculously when they don't want to? That's the question of
the day for me. I could flirt desperately in old times, and yet
look as demure and cool as if I were an innocent.
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