“Yes, please.” With a broadened smile and a bow to each of them he got to his feet and made his way to the door.
Graham lit his cigarette. “Was it absolutely necessary to be so rude? Why drive the man away?”
She frowned. “Turks! I do not like them. They are”-she ransacked the automobile salesman’s vocabulary for an epithet-“they are goddamned dagoes. See how thick his skin is! He does not get angry. He only smiles.”
“Yes, he behaved very well.”
“I do not understand it,” she burst out angrily. “In the last war you fought with France against the Turks. In the convent they told me much about it. They are heathen animals, these Turks. There were the Armenian atrocities and the Syrian atrocities and the Smyrna atrocities. Turks killed babies with their bayonets. But now it is all different. You like the Turks. They are your allies and you buy tobacco from them. It is the English hypocrisy. I am a Serb. I have a longer memory.”
“Does your memory go back to nineteen twelve? I was thinking of the Serbian atrocities in Turkish villages. Most armies commit what are called atrocities at some time or other. They usually call them reprisals.”
“Including the British army, perhaps?”
“You would have to ask an Indian or an Afrikander about that. But every country has its madmen. Some countries have more than others. And when you give such men a license to kill they are not always particular about the way they kill. But I am afraid that the rest of their fellow countrymen remain human beings. Personally, I like the Turks.”
She was clearly angry with him. He suspected that her rudeness to Mr. Kuvetli had been calculated to earn his approval and that she was annoyed because he had not responded in the way she had expected. “It is stuffy in here,” she said, “and there is a smell of cooking. I should like to walk outside again. You may come with me if you wish.”
Graham seized the opportunity. He said, as they walked towards the door: “I think that I should unpack my suitcase. I shall hope to see you at dinner.”