XXII
There were five people in the Quirinal bar after dinner, a high-class Italian frail who sat on a stool making persistent conversation against the bartender’s bored: ‘Si ... Si ... Si,’ a light, snobbish Egyptian who was lonely but chary of the woman, and the two Americans.
Dick was always vividly conscious of his surroundings, while Collis Clay lived vaguely, the sharpest impressions dissolving upon a recording apparatus that had early atrophied, so the former talked and the latter listened, like a man sitting in a breeze.
Dick, worn away by the events of the afternoon, was taking it out on the inhabitants of Italy. He looked around the bar as if he hoped an Italian had heard him and would resent his words.
‘This afternoon I had tea with my sister-in-law at the Excelsior. We got t
