"Fenn is the man who has had most to do with him," Julian remarked. "I
wouldn't trust Fenn a yard, but I believe in Freistner."

"So do I," Furley assented, "but is Fenn's report of his promises and
the strength of his followers entirely honest?"

"That's the part of the whole thing I don't like," Julian acknowledged.
"Fenn's practically the corner stone of this affair. It was he who met
Freistner in Amsterdam and started these negotiations, and I'm damned if
I like Fenn, or trust him. Did you see the way he looked at Stenson out
of the corners of his eyes, like a little ferret? Stenson was at his
best, too. I never admired the man more."

"He certainly kept his head," Furley agreed. "His few straight words
were to the point, too."

"It wasn't the occasion for eloquence," Julian declared. "That'll come
next week. I suppose he'll try and break the Trades Unions. What a
chance for an Edmund Burke! It's all right, I suppose, but I wonder why
I'm feeling so damned miserable."

"The fact is," Furley confided, "you and I and the Bishop and Miss
Abbeway are all to a certain extent out of place on that Council. We
ought to have contented ourselves with having supplied the ideas. When
it comes to the practical side, our other instincts revolt. After all,
if we believed that by continuing the war we could beat Germany from
a military point of view, I suppose we should forget a lot of this
admirable reasoning of ours and let it go on."

"It doesn't seem a fair bargain, though," Julian sighed. "It's the lives
of our men to-day for the freedom of their descendants, if that isn't
frittered away by another race of politicians. It isn't good enough,
Miles."

"Then let's be thankful it's going to stop," Furley declared. "We've
pinned our colours to the mast, Julian. I don't like Fenn any more than
you do, nor do I trust him, but I can't see, in this instance, that he
has anything to gain by not running straight. Besides, he can't have
faked the terms, and that's the only document that counts. And so good
night and to bed," he added, pausing at the street corner, where they
parted.

There was something curiously different about the demeanour of Julian's
trusted servant, as he took his master's coat and hat. Even Julian,
engrossed as he was in the happenings of the evening, could scarcely
fail to notice it.

"You seem out of sorts to-night, Robert!" he remarked.

The latter, whose manners were usually suave and excellent, an