Spiro Hajistavros was so moved he suddenly realized:

‘I guess I might take a picture.’

And began to unstrap his Hasselblad.

‘Not this afternoon,’ his wife objected coldly. ‘Don’t forget we are here on an extended visit.’

Maro had begun again to remember she was American as well. She was very glad she had that to cling to.

‘And we shall be taking them for drives,’ she announced, making them her property. ‘Just as soon as we have located the car.’

For the second Cadillac had been shipped over in advance.

‘My God!’ Kikitsa said.

‘We Athenians,’ Alexiou added, ‘expect to suffer for our pleasures.’

With the result that Hajistavros was again resentful.

‘My God!’ said Kikitsa. ‘Long live all returned millionaires! But what shall I do with my darling cats? While I go gadding pneumatically! Eh, husband mou, what about cats?’

Here she pinched her Aleko, and might have gone right through, if his smile had not been more resistant than it looked.

Then she forgot for a moment, or remembered, for scrambling up, she began to grasp at the air, and cry:

‘Hymettus, Maroula! They say the convent at Ayia Varvara has been done up. The nuns are no longer there. Some of them were rather dirty, poor things. The nuns, Maroula, who gave us the milk.’

Maro Hajistavrou drew on her gloves.

‘Nuns!’ she said, and shivered. ‘But monks are usually dirtier.’

‘They say the garden of the convent is so well kept. And the road that runs. You remember, Maroula, the Sunday we walked? But over the mountain. Resting in the heather. How we used to walk!’

So that again two girls were plunging their arms in mountain water, they were wiping off their moustaches of milk.

But Maro tossed her head.

‘I never cared for Hymettus.’

She was rich enough to afford unreasonable dislikes.

‘I thought perhaps Sounion,’ she said. ‘Anyway, for a start.’

‘Ach, Soun-ion!’ Kikitsa swooned.

‘Ach, Verikokko!’ she quickly added. ‘What shall we do with Apricock? Eh? My lovely orange cat?’

She would have stuffed him in her bosom. But the great cat, after entering the room fastuously, trying out his eyes, his claws, had begun to back against the furniture, his thrilling tail perfectly erect.

Everybody was fascinated.

‘Ach, Verikokko!’ Kikitsa exclaimed. ‘Look, he’s done it on the book-case!’

Aleko Alexiou sat and smiled.

‘My wife is fond of cats,’ he said.

Maro Hajistavrou decided she was not aware that anything had happened.

‘But understanding,’ Kikitsa cried. ‘To love is unimportant in itself. Understanding is what really matters.’

Alexiou had sat forward. He was masticating his lower lip.

‘It is important,’ he said, addressing the room, ‘to distinguish between the instinctive and the rational.’

The climate no longer favoured abstraction. Nor was his wife, in the grip of her very personal passion, able to nurture or even notice. So he sank back.

‘You, Maro,’ Kikitsa moaned, ‘quite liked but never understood a cat.’

‘We shall leave you to your siesta,’ Maro Hajistavrou said, and laughed.