“You are ridiculous,” said Josette.
“If they do not like it they can stay in the lavabos,” José declared aggressively.
“It would be a small price to pay,” murmured Graham.
Josette giggled. José scowled. “I do not understand.”
Graham did not see that there was anything to be gained by explaining. He ignored José and said in English: “I was just going to have a drink. Will you come?”
She looked doubtful. “Do you wish to buy José a drink also?”
“Must I?”
“I cannot get rid of him.”
José was glowering at them suspiciously. “It is not wise to insult me,” he said.
“No one is insulting you, imbecile. Monsieur here asks us to have drinks. Do you want a drink?”
He belched. “I do not care who I drink with if we can get off this filthy deck.”
“He is so polite,” said Josette.
They had finished their drinks when the gong sounded. Graham soon found that he had been wise to leave the question of his attitude towards Moeller to answer itself. It was “Haller” who appeared in answer to the gong; a Haller who greeted Graham as if nothing had happened and who embarked almost immediately on a long account of the manifestations of An, the Sumerian sky god. Only once did he show himself to be aware of any change in his relationship with Graham. Soon after he began talking, Banat entered and sat down. Moeller paused and glanced across the table at him. Banat stared back sullenly. Moeller turned deliberately to Graham.
“Monsieur Mavrodopoulos,” he remarked, “looks as if he has been frustrated in some way, as if he has been told that he may not be able to do something that he wishes to do very badly. Don’t you think so, Mr. Graham? I wonder if he is going to be disappointed.”
Graham looked up from his plate to meet a level stare. There was no mistaking the question in the pale blue eyes. He knew that Banat, too, was watching him. He said slowly: “It would be a pleasure to disappoint Monsieur Mavrodopoulos.”
Moeller smiled and the smile reached his eyes. “So it would. Now let me see. What was I saying? Ah, yes …”
That was all; but Graham went on with his meal, knowing that one at least of the day’s problems was solved. He would not have to approach Moeller: Moeller would approach him.
But Moeller was evidently in no hurry to do so. The afternoon dragged intolerably. Mr. Kuvetli had said that they were not to have any sort of conversation and Graham deemed it advisable to plead a headache when Mathis suggested a rubber of bridge. His refusal affected the Frenchman peculiarly. There was a troubled reluctance about his acceptance of it, and he looked as if he had been about to say something important and then thought better of it. There was in his eyes the same look of unhappy confusion that Graham had seen in the morning. But Graham wondered about it only for a few seconds. He was not greatly interested in the Mathis.
Moeller, Banat, Josette and José had gone to their cabins immediately after lunch. Signora Beronelli had been induced to make the fourth with the Mathis and Mr. Kuvetli and appeared to be enjoying herself. Her son sat by her watching her jealously. Graham returned in desperation to the magazines. Towards five o’clock, however, the bridge four showed signs of disintegrating and, to avoid being drawn into a conversation with Mr. Kuvetli, Graham went out on deck.
The sun, obscured since the day before, was pouring a red glow through a thinning of the clouds just above the horizon. To the east the long, low strip of coast which had been visible earlier was already enveloped in a slate grey dusk and the lights of a town had begun to twinkle. The clouds were moving quickly as for the gathering of a storm and heavy drops of rain began to slant in on to the deck. He moved backwards out of the rain and found Mathis at his elbow. The Frenchman nodded.
“Was it a good game?” Graham asked.
“Quite good. Madame Beronelli and I lost. She is enthusiastic, but inefficient.”
“Then, except for the enthusiasm, my absence made no difference.”
Mathis smiled a little nervously. “I hope that your headache is better.”
“Much better, thank you.”
It had begun to rain in earnest now. Mathis stared out gloomily into the gathering darkness. “Filthy!” he commented.
“Yes.”
There was a pause. Then:
“I was afraid,” said Mathis suddenly, “that you did not wish to play with us. I could not blame you if such were the case. This morning you were good enough to make an apology. The true apology was due from me to you.”
He was not looking at Graham. “I am quite sure …” Graham began to mumble, but Mathis went on as if he were addressing the seagulls following the ship. “I do not always remember,” he said bitterly, “that what to some people is good or bad is to others simply boring. My wife has led me to put too much faith in the power of words.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Mathis turned his head and smiled wryly. “Do you know the word encotillonné?”
“No.”
“A man who is governed by his wife is encotillonné.”
“In English we say ‘hen-pecked.’ ”
“Ah, yes?” Obviously he did not care what was said in English. “I must tell you a joke about it. Once I was encotillonné. Oh, but very badly! Does that surprise you?”
“It does.” Graham saw that the man was dramatising himself, and was curious.
“My wife used to have a very great temper. She still has it, I think, but now I do not see it. But for the first ten years of our marriage it was terrible. I had a small business. Trade was very bad and I became bankrupt. It was not my fault, but she always pretended that it was. Has your wife a bad temper, Monsieur?”
“No. Very good.”
“You are lucky. For years I lived in misery. And then one day I made a great discovery. There was a socialist meeting in our town and I went to it. I was, you must understand, a Royalist. My family had no money, but they had a title which they would have liked to use without their neighbours sniggering. I was of my family. I went to this meeting because I was curious. The speaker was good, and he spoke about Briey. That interested me because I had been at Verdun. A week later we were with some friends in the café and I repeated what I had heard. My wife laughed in a curious way. Then when I got home I made my great discovery. I found that my wife was a snob and more stupid than I had dreamed. She said that I had humiliated her by saying such things as if I believed them. All her friends were respectable people. I must not speak as if I were a workman. She cried. I knew then that I was free. I had a weapon that I could use against her. I used it. If she displeased me I became a socialist. To the smug little tradesmen whose wives were her friends I would preach the abolition of profit and the family. I bought books and pamphlets to make my arguments more damaging. My wife became very docile. She would cook things that I liked so that I would not disgrace her.” He paused.
“You mean that you don’t believe all these things you say about Briey and banking and capitalism?” demanded Graham.
Mathis smiled faintly. “That is the joke about which I told you. For a time I was free. I could command my wife and I became more fond of her. I was a manager in a big factory. And then a terrible thing happened. I found that I had begun to believe these things I said. The books I read showed me that I had found a truth. I, a Royalist by instinct, became a socialist by conviction. Worse, I became a socialist martyr. There was a strike in the factory and I, a manager, supported the strikers. I did not belong to a union. Naturally! And so I was dismissed. It was ridiculous.” He shrugged. “So here I am! I have become a man in my home at the price of becoming a bore outside it. It is funny, is it not?”