They looked at each other in comprehensive silence.

“You know as well as I that it’s not the question of whether Russia comes into Persia, but the question of whether Russia goes out of Persia when these Hazaras are subdued!  I’ll lay you what you like, Chilcote, that within one week we hear that the risings are suppressed, but that Russia, instead of retiring, has advanced those tempting twenty miles and comfortably ensconced herself at Meshed—­as she ensconced herself on the island of Ashurada.  Lakely’s nervous, energetic figure was braced, his light-blue eyes brightened, by the intensity of his interest.

“If this news comes before the Easter recess,” he went on, “the first nail can be hammered in on the motion for adjournment.  And if the right man does it in the right way, I’ll lay my life ’twill be a nail in Sefborough’s coffin.”

Loder sat very still.  Overwhelming possibilities had suddenly opened before him.  In a moment the unreality of the past months had become real; a tangible justification of himself and his imposture was suddenly made possible.  In the stress of understanding he, too, leaned forward, and, resting his elbows on the desk, took his face between his hands.

For a space Lakely made no remark.  To him man and man’s moods came second in interest to his paper and his party politics.  That Chilcote should be conscious of the glories he had opened up seemed only natural; that he should show that consciousness in a becoming gravity seemed only right.  For some seconds he made no attempt to disturb him; but at last his own irrepressible activity made silence unendurable.  He caught up his pencil and tapped impatiently on the desk.

“Chilcote,” he said, quickly and with a gleam of sudden anxiety, “you’re not by any chance doubtful of yourself?”

At sound of his voice Loder lifted his face; it was quite pale again, but the energy and resolution that had come into it when Lakely first spoke were still to be seen.

“No, Lakely,” he said, very slowly, “it’s not the sort of moment in which a man doubts himself,”

XIX

And so it came about that Loder was freed from one responsibility to undertake another.  From the morning of March 27th, when Lakely had expounded the political programme in the offices of the ‘St. George’s Gazette’, to the afternoon of April 1st he found himself a central figure in the whirlpool of activity that formed itself in Conservative circles.

With the acumen for which he was noted, Lakely had touched the key-stone of the situation on that morning; and succeeding events, each fraught with its own importance, had established the precision of his forecast.

Minutely watchful of Russia’s attitude, Fraide quietly organized his forces and strengthened his position with a statesmanlike grasp of opportunity; and to Loder the attributes displayed by his leader during those trying days formed an endless and absorbing study.  Setting the thought of Chilcote aside, ignoring his own position and the risks he daily ran, he had fully yielded to the glamour of the moment, and in the first freedom of a loose rein he had given unreservedly all that he possessed of activity, capacity, and determination to the cause that had claimed him.