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'After years of the closest observation and exhaustive research,' René told his brother-in-law, 'I find it impossible to come to any other conclusion.'

At this unexpected dénouement, of what had succeeded his initial enquiry regarding the proposed Russian pact, Percy's first reaction was one of bewilderment. This was expressed in his face with a most graphic explicitness. Next, it could with a comic distinctness be observed transforming itself into something else. The bewilderment hardened into suspicion: Percy could be seen to cast a covert glance at the bearded oracle! Mary noted the arrival of second-thoughts with anxiety. For absurd as the phase of Percy and René's relationship appeared to her, in which the quixotic was in the ascendant, yet Mary would have far preferred that to one in which her husband came to look upon René as a lunatic. Nor was René unaware that he had gone too far. Formerly he had never moved on to an enlightened plane in conversing with Mary's husband, nor with Mary either, except for one lapse, which had not developed. He asked himself how he had come to be led into this, and why he had not contented himself with some conventional explanation. 'It was the prophet coming out,' he told himself, with an internal grimace.