Charmingly dorky; B is not buying. "Aww! Do you happen to know what the Swahili is for Mind your own beeswax?" Chuck gets embarrassed, and Blair prickily clarifies that she's just looking for useful safari phrases. Nate begs her to quit it, but no.

"It was in effect a little tree-fern, with long, slender, sometimes branched, stem ... provided with spines by means of which it probably climbed on its neighbors..."

Chuck changes the subject to Bree's recent Texas visit, the better to mend fences, and she says it didn't work. "We're Southern, so family loyalty's really big down there..." Blair rushes to fill the void -- "Like slavery!" -- which even freaks Chuck out. Blair earns a fake smile from Bree ("You know I'm joking, right, Bree?") before Nate changes the subject to Serena, mentioning Carter and wondering if they've broken up yet. He sure is interested in her dating life lately. "Carter Baizen?" Bree brightens. "Is he in town? I heard he was away on business." Chuck is intrigued; but Blair's single-minded reaction to Bree refuses to admit any other plotpoint. "Traveling is so important. Bree, have you ever thought about traveling... Somewhere very far away?"

"As a result of variation certain individuals will succeed better than others in the struggle for existence. Those most poorly adapted to their surroundings will perish, and only the more vigorous ones -- those best adjusted to their surroundings -- will persist."

Nate continues to be horrified, Bree -- whom, let's admit it, is getting kind of a raw deal here even though she is, like Scott was before, doing a creepy thing while also very much liking Nate -- tries her best to get past the continual assaults, and Chuck is just straight grossed out. He asks about Carter some more, and Bree says their families go way back. When the cart arrives, she offers to order for the table, having just been in Shanghai, which makes Nate proud and Blair even fiercer. She interrupts the order: "Nate doesn't like tofu when it's called bean curd, and he hasn't eaten pork since he saw Babe. With me." Nate makes a face, and she aims a nasty one back at him like what.