She raised her eyebrows. “Ah, now I know that you cannot be well! You are polite. But very well, I will go with you.”
He smiled fatuously, went on to his table, and exchanged reserved greetings with the two Italians. It was not until he sat down that he noticed that an extra place had been laid beside them.
His first impulse was to get up and walk out. The fact that Banat was on the ship was bad enough: to have to eat at the same table would be intolerable. But everything depended upon his behaving normally. He would have to stay. He must try and think of Banat as Monsieur Mavrodopoulos, a Greek business man, whom he had never seen or heard of before. He must …
Haller came in and sat down beside him. “Good evening, Mr. Graham. And did you enjoy Athens this afternoon?”
“Yes, thanks. Mr. Kuvetli was suitably impressed.”
“Ah, yes, of course. You were doing duty as a guide. You must be feeling tired.”
“To tell you the truth, my courage failed me. I hired a car. The chauffeur did the guiding. As Mr. Kuvetli speaks fluent Greek, the whole thing went off quite satisfactorily.”
“He speaks Greek and yet he has never been to Athens?”
“It appears that he was born in Smyrna. Apart from that, I regret to say, I discovered nothing. My own private opinion is that he is a bore.”
“That is disappointing. I had hopes … However, it cannot be helped. To tell you the truth, I wished afterwards that I had come with you. You went up to the Parthenon, of course.”