“Yes.”
Haller smiled apologetically. “When you reach my age you sometimes think of the approach of death. I thought this afternoon how much I would have liked to have seen the Parthenon just once more. I doubt if I shall have another opportunity of doing so. I used to spend hours standing in the shade by the Propylæa looking at it and trying to understand the men who built it. I was young then and did not know how difficult it is for Western man to understand the dream-heavy classical soul. They are so far apart. The god of superlative shape has been replaced by the god of superlative force and between the two conceptions there is all space. The destiny idea symbolised by the Doric columns is incomprehensible to the children of Faust. For us …” He broke off. “Excuse me. I see that we have another passenger, I suppose that he is to sit here.”
Graham forced himself to look up.
Banat had come in and was standing looking at the tables. The steward, carrying plates of soup, appeared behind him and motioned him towards the place next to the Italian woman. Banat approached, looked round the table, and sat down. He nodded to them, smiling slightly.
“Mavrodopoulos,” he said. “Je parle français un petit peu.”
His voice was toneless and husky and he spoke with a slight lisp. The smell of attar of roses came across the table.
Graham nodded distantly. Now that the moment had come he felt quite calm.
Haller’s look of strangled disgust was almost funny. He said pompously: “Haller. Beside you are Signora and Signor Beronelli. This is Monsieur Graham.”
Banat nodded to them again and said: “I have travelled a long way to-day. From Salonika.”
Graham made an effort. “I should have thought,” he said, “that it would have been easier to go to Genoa by train from Salonika.” He felt oddly breathless as he said it and his voice sounded strange in his own ears.