“Some of them,” remarked Mrs. Folyat, “are worth at least a hundred pounds.”
“I found myself rather liking this place as I walked here,” said Serge. “But I found myself wondering what happens to all the suppressed vitality of the people in it. How many people are there? There must be half a million. What do they all do? Their work can’t be very satisfying. Do they produce children at an appalling rate? Or is there any artistic outlet? There can’t be, or it wouldn’t be so ugly. I suppose there’s a lot of crime and a lot of mess. I must have a look at it. Do they have frightful diseases, and isn’t it rather a mockery spreading the Gospel of Christ in such a place?”
“Serge!” Mrs. Folyat was unable to follow what he said, but she was hurt at the mention of one whom she had always regarded as her Saviour at the supper-table.
“Have I shocked you, mother? I’m sorry,” said Serge. “You’re all so different from what I have been thinking you for years and years and I find it difficult to say anything. You’re not exactly full of news about yourselves, and my thoughts ran away with me. That’s bad.”
“You haven’t become an infidel I hope.” Mrs. Folyat was rather querulous. “You went to church in Africa?”
“I was lay reader to the Bishop of Bloemfontein for six months.”
“Ah!”
That reassured Mrs. Folyat, and she turned to her food again. She enjoyed eating, and took very small mouthfuls and nibbled at them in a most genteel fashion. Francis on the other hand ate hurriedly in large gulps and had always finished his plateful before everybody else. Serge suddenly found their methods of eating intensely interesting. He too loved eating—he had revelled in English cooking after his years in Africa—and it was pleasant to find that he had something in common with his father and mother, though, instinctively, he knew that he must not talk about it.
Francis rose from the table and took up pipe and tobacco. Serge produced his calabash and filled it.
“You don’t smoke cigarettes?” asked Francis.