Banat turned without answering to the drink the steward had poured out for him. He had not once looked at Graham.
“You are not looking well,” said Josette severely. “I do not think you are sincere when you say that you are only tired.”
“You are tired?” said Mr. Kuvetli in French. “Ah, it is my fault. Always with ancient monuments it is necessary to walk.” He seemed to have given Banat up as a bad job.
“Oh, I enjoyed the walk.”
“It is the ventilation,” Madame Mathis repeated stubbornly.
“There is,” conceded her husband, “a certain stuffiness.” He addressed himself very pointedly to exclude José from his audience. “But what can one expect for so little money?”
“So little!” exclaimed José. “That is very good. It is quite expensive enough for me. I am not a millionaire.”
Mathis flushed angrily. “There are more expensive ways of travelling from Istanbul to Genoa.”
“There is always a more expensive way of doing anything,” retorted José.
Josette said quickly: “My husband always exaggerates.”