"Parle français," he said, pointing to the young man.
We strained our ears to try and catch an intelligible word, but could only shake our heads.
So we all took refuge in silence and looked at one another. There was no sense of gêne. The Turk and his companion seemed as content to sit and look at us as the women had been. When he had finished his cigarette he rose, and, bowing once more in Turkish fashion, took his leave.
We picked up our papers once more, then Constantin came and said lunch was ready. We sat on saddle-bags outside the tent and ate chunks of mutton and onions out of the tin bowl keeping hot on the charcoal brazier at our side. Ibrahim filled our cups with water from the brook, and the grass tickled our hands each time we lifted them from the ground. The pots and pans lay about all around, and Constantin, squatting in the middle of them, brought the coffee to the boil three times in the little Turkish pot.
"Sheker, effendi?" he called out, "un, deux?" as he ladled in the sugar. Constantin's language was always of a hybrid nature, consisting of alternate words of French and Turkish.
Then we had returned to the carpet under the tree and sipped the thick, hot coffee out of the little Turkish cups, and sent thoughtful rings of smoke up into the branches of the tree above. And with the rings of smoke went up thoughts of the coffee they were drinking now in the drawing-rooms; the little cups there would have handles, and each one would help himself to sugar off a little tray.
"I guess you find it slow here!"
An American tourist couple from Brusa stood over us. They had seen us off at Madame Brot's hotel, and had then announced their intention of driving to Nicæa in a landau.