Presently the young man broke a silence by saying: “These here Balkans seem to be giving trouble again.”
“Troublesome lot they are,” said Mrs. Pybus.
“Greeks and Macedonians and Turks and Bulgarians and such. It fair makes my head spin, the lot of them. Servians there are too, and Montenegroes. Too many of ’em altogether. Cat and dog.”
“Are them the same Greeks that used to be so clever?” asked Mrs. Pybus.
“Used to be,” said the young man with a kind of dark scorn, and suddenly began to pick his teeth with a pin.
“They can’t even speak their own language now—not properly. Fair rotten,” the young man added.
He fascinated Joan. She had never watched anything like him. But Peter just hated him.
§ 4
Upon this scene there presently appeared a new actor. He was preluded by a knocking at the door, he was ushered in by Mrs. Pybus who was opening and shutting her mouth in a state of breathless respect; he was received with the utmost deference by the young man with red hair. Indeed, from the moment when his knocking was heard without, the manner and bearing of the red-haired young man underwent the most marvellous change. An agitated alacrity appeared in his manner; he stood up and moved nervously; by weak, neck-ward movements of his head he seemed to indicate he now regretted wearing such a bright green tie. The newcomer appeared in the doorway. He was a tall, grey-clad, fair gentleman, with a face that twitched and a hand that dandled in front of him. He grinned his teeth at the room. “So thassem,” he said, touching his teeth with his thumbnail.
He nodded confidentially to the red-haired young man without removing his eyes from Joan and Peter. He showed still more of his teeth and rattled his thumbnail along them. Then he waved his hand over the table. “Clear all this away,” he said, and sat down in the young man’s chair. Mrs. Pybus cleared away rapidly, assisted abjectly by the young man.