My enthusiasm was beginning to strike sparks from Macgillivray.  He was looking thoughtful now, instead of despondent.

‘There might be something in that,’ he said, ’but it’s a far-out chance.’

’Of course it’s a far-out chance, and that’s all we’re ever going to get from Ivery.  But we’ve taken a bad chance before and won . . .  Then you’ve all that you know about Ivery here.  Go through his dossier with a small-tooth comb and I’ll bet you find something to work on.  Blenkiron, you’re a man with a cool head.  You admit we’ve a sporting chance.’

’Sure, Dick.  He’s fixed things so that the lines are across the track, but we’ll clear somehow.  So far as John S. Blenkiron is concerned he’s got just one thing to do in this world, and that’s to follow the yellow dog and have him neatly and cleanly tidied up.  I’ve got a stack of personal affronts to settle.  I was easy fruit and he hasn’t been very respectful.  You can count me in, Dick.’

‘Then we’re agreed,’ I cried.  ’Well, gentlemen, it’s up to you to arrange the first stage.  You’ve some pretty solid staff work to put in before you get on the trail.’

‘And you?’ Sir Walter asked.

’I’m going back to my brigade.  I want a rest and a change.  Besides, the first stage is office work, and I’m no use for that.  But I’ll be waiting to be summoned, and I’ll come like a shot as soon as you hoick me out.  I’ve got a presentiment about this thing.  I know there’ll be a finish and that I’ll be in at it, and I think it will be a desperate, bloody business too.’

I found Mary’s eyes fixed upon me, and in them I read the same thought.  She had not spoken a word, but had sat on the edge of a chair, swinging a foot idly, one hand playing with an ivory fan.  She had given me my old orders and I looked to her for confirmation of the new.

’Miss Lamington, you are the wisest of the lot of us.  What do you say?’

She smiled—­that shy, companionable smile which I had been picturing to myself through all the wanderings of the past month.

’I think you are right.  We’ve a long way to go yet, for the Valley of Humiliation comes only half-way in the Pilgrim’s Progress.  The next stage was Vanity Fair.  I might be of some use there, don’t you think?’

I remember the way she laughed and flung back her head like a gallant boy.

‘The mistake we’ve all been making,’ she said, ’is that our methods are too terre-a-terre.  We’ve a poet to deal with, a great poet, and we must fling our imaginations forward to catch up with him.  His strength is his unexpectedness, you know, and we won’t beat him by plodding only.  I believe the wildest course is the wisest, for it’s the most likely to intersect his . . .  Who’s the poet among us?’

‘Peter,’ I said.  ’But he’s pinned down with a game leg in Germany.  All the same we must rope him in.’