The Council Chamber was a long high room on the first floor; its walls from floor to ceiling were lined with books.  A noiseless rubber carpet was underfoot.  There were no windows; the room was lighted artificially.  A long table, set round with armed chairs, ran the length of the floor, eight on either side; and the Presidential chair, raised on a dais, stood at the head.

Each man went straight to his chair in silence, and remained there, waiting.

* * * * *

The room was beautifully cool, in spite of the absence of windows, and was a pleasant contrast to the hot evening outside through which most of these men had come.  They, too, had wondered at the surprising weather, and had smiled at the conflict of the infallible.  But they were not thinking about that now:  the coming of the President was a matter which always silenced the most loquacious.  Besides, this time, they understood that the affair was more serious than usual.

At one minute before the hour, again a bell sounded, four times, and ceased; and at the signal each man turned instinctively to the high sliding door behind the Presidential chair.  There was dead silence within and without:  the huge Government offices were luxuriously provided with sound-deadening apparatus, and not even the rolling of the vast motors within a hundred yards was able to send a vibration through the layers of rubber on which the walls rested.  There was only one noise that could penetrate, and that the sound of thunder.  The experts were at present unable to exclude this.

Again the silence seemed to fall in one yet deeper veil.  Then the door opened, and a figure came swiftly through, followed by Another in black and scarlet.

II

He passed straight up to the chair, followed by two secretaries, bowed slightly to this side and that, sat down and made a little gesture.  Then they, too, were in their chairs, upright and intent.  For perhaps the hundredth time, Oliver, staring upon the President, marvelled at the quietness and the astounding personality of Him.  He was in the English judicial dress that had passed down through centuries—­black and scarlet with sleeves of white fur and a crimson sash—­and that had lately been adopted as the English presidential costume of him who stood at the head of the legislature.  But it was in His personality, in the atmosphere that flowed from Him, that the marvel lay.  It was as the scent of the sea to the physical nature—­it exhilarated, cleansed, kindled, intoxicated.  It was as inexplicably attractive as a cherry orchard in spring, as affecting as the cry of stringed instruments, as compelling as a storm.  So writers had said.  They compared it to a stream of clear water, to the flash of a gem, to the love of woman.  They lost all decency sometimes; they said it fitted all moods, as the voice of many waters; they called it again and again, as explicitly as possible, the Divine Nature perfectly Incarnate at last....