A Shade of Difference [antikvár]

In the great pearl-gray slab of a room that is the North Delegates' Lounge of the United Nations in New York the late-September sun slanted down through the massive east windows and fell across the green carpets, the crowded chairs and sofas, the little Imots of delegates standing or sitting or nulling about in the midmorning hours before the General Assembly's seven committees began. Riding over their noisy hubbub came the heavy voices of the young ladies at the telephone desk, relaying via the public-address system their bored yet insistent summonses to the myriad sons of man: "Mr. Sadu-Nalim of the delegation of Iran, please call the Delegates' Lounge! . . . Senator Fry of the United States, please! . . . Ambassador Labaiya-Sofra of the delegation of Panama, please call the Delegates' Lounge! . . . His Royal Highness the M'Bulu of Mbuele, please . . . Secretary Knox of the United States . . ." Surveying the immense and noisy chamber from his vantage point near the door, Senator Harold Fry of West Virginia, one of the two Senate members and acting head of the United States delegation, wondered with some impatience where Orrin Knox was now. The Secretary of State had been in town two days and Hal Fry had hardly seen him for ten minutes at a time, so busy had the Secretary been with conferences, diplomatic receptions, U.S. delegation business, and what Senator Fry termed with some disparagement "giving beads to the natives." Not that he was above giving a few himself, he thought wryly as he waved with vigorous cordiality to a passing Nigerian and bestowed a glowing smile upon the delegate from Gabon; but at least he could take it or leave it. Secretary Knox seemed to be going about it with a determination that bordered on the grim; Orrin acted at moments as though the fate of the world depended upon it. Which, of course, Senator Fry conceded abruptly wdth a loud "Hello!" to the delegate of Nepal, it quite possibly did. A momentary look of concentration and unease touched his face at the thought, an expression of sudden melancholy that went almost as soon as it appeared. The Ambassador of India materialized at his elbow and seized upon it with unfailing accuracy. "My dear Hal," Krishna Khaleel said vidth his air of half-jocular concern, "first you are being so joHy with everybody and then suddenly you look so sad. What is the matter with the Great Republic of the West this morning? Or is it only the distinguished delegate who feels something unsetding in his tummy, perhaps?" fi.M.^,