“He stopped playing too soon,” said José. “You need not worry. I have not finished with him.”
“Perhaps he has finished with you.”
“He must be a very good player,” Graham put in tactfully.
José eyed him distastefully. “And what do you know about it?”
“Nothing,” retorted Graham coldly. “For all I know it may be simply that you are a very bad player.”
“You would like to play perhaps?”
“I don’t think so. Cards bore me.”
José sneered. “Ah, yes! There are better things to do, eh?” He sucked his teeth loudly.
“When he is bad-tempered,” Josette explained, “he cannot be polite. There is nothing to be done with him. He does not care what people think.”
José pursed up his mouth into an expression of saccharine sweetness. “ ‘He does not care what people think,’ ” he repeated in a high, derisive falsetto. Then his face relaxed. “What do I care what they think?” he demanded.