The Light and the Dark Read Online Free Page B

the post, the place in Switzerland, I forget–”
    “Berne,” Roy whispered.
    “Berne.” She smiled at him gratefully.
    “How old is your Houston?” asked Lady Boscastle.
    “About forty, I should say. And I think that’s a very nice and sensible age,” said Mrs Seymour with unexpected firmness. “I always wished my husband had been older–”
    “If he’s only a first secretary at forty, I should not think he was going so terribly far.” Lady Boscastle directed her lorgnette at her husband. “I remember one years younger. We were in Warsaw. Yes, he was clever.” A faint, sarcastic, charming smile crossed her face. Lord Boscastle smiled back – was I imagining it, or was there something humble, unconfident, about that smile?
    At any rate, he began to address the table again.
    “I shouldn’t have thought that the Foreign Office was specially distinguished nowadays. I’ve actually known one or two people who went in,” he added as though he were straining our credulity.
    While he thought no one was looking, Roy could not repress a smile of delight. He could no longer resist taking a hand: his face composed again, he was just beginning to ask Lord Boscastle a question, when Lady Muriel cut across him.
    “Of course,” she said, “someone’s obliged to do these things.”
    “Someone’s obliged to become civil servants and look after the drains,” said Lord Boscastle with good-natured scorn. “That doesn’t make it any better.”
    Roy started again.
    “Should you have said, Lord Boscastle,” (the words, the tone, sounded suspiciously like Lord Boscastle’s own) “that the Foreign Office was becoming slightly common ?”
    Lord Boscastle regarded him, and paused.
    “Perhaps that would be going rather far, Calvert. All I can say is that I should never have gone in myself. And I hope my son doesn’t show any signs of wanting to.”
    “Oh, it must be wonderful to make treaties and go about in secret–” cried Mrs Seymour, girlish with enthusiasm, her voice trailing off.
    “Make treaties!” Lord Boscastle chuckled. “All they do is clerk away in offices and get one out of trouble if one goes abroad. They do it like conscientious fellows, no doubt.”
    “Why shouldn’t you like your son to want it, Lord Boscastle?” Roy asked, his eyes very bright.
    “I hope that, if he feels obliged to take up a career, he’ll choose something slightly more out of the ordinary.”
    “It isn’t because you don’t want him to get into low company?” Lord Boscastle wore a fixed smile. Roy looked more than ever demure.
    “Of course,” said Roy, “he might pick up an unfortunate accent from one of those people. One needs to be careful. Do you think,” he asked earnestly, “that is the reason why some of them are so anxious to learn foreign languages? Do you think they hope it will cover up their own?”
    “Mr Calvert!” Lady Boscastle’s voice sounded high and gentle. Roy met the gaze behind the lorgnette.
    “Mr Calvert, have you been inside an embassy?”
    “Only once, Lady Boscastle.”
    “I think I must take you to some more. You’ll find they’re quite nice people. And really not unelegant. They talk quite nicely too. I’m just a little surprised you didn’t know that already, Mr Calvert.”
    Roy burst into a happy, unguarded laugh: a blush mounted his cheeks. I had not seem him blush before. It was not often people played him at his own game. Usually they did not know what to make of him, they felt befogged, they left him still enquiring, straight-faced, bright-eyed.
    The whole table was laughing – suddenly I noticed Joan’s face quite transformed. She had given way completely to her laughter, the sullenness was dissolved; it was the richest of laughs, and hearing it one knew that some day she would love with all her heart.
    Lord Boscastle himself was smiling. He was not a slow-witted man, he had known he was being teased. I got the impression that he was grateful for his wife’s