If he could flatter, so could I.
He paused a moment, and then, in a slightly lower tone, and with a suggestion of increased importance, he said, motioning toward von Nauheim:
"Our friend has told me your very shrewd doubts as to the probable action of those at Berlin. They are very natural, and you are quite right to express them; but—there is no fear on that score. The Imperial Government is as sick of the vagaries of the King as we Bavarians ourselves. He is a constant anxiety. You will see why. A madman on a throne is a standing menace to the principle of the Divine Right on which a monarchy must in reality depend. They will not interfere, because openly they dare not countenance a movement to upset a throne."
And he went on to give me elaborate arguments to explain away my doubts. I listened very carefully, stated my objections, and discussed them all; and then allowed myself to appear to be won round by his persuasion to the view that when once the plot were carried to a successful climax Berlin would recognize the new position and acquiesce in it. This I believed myself, moreover.
As I held the clew to his real motives, I was greatly interested to note the subtlety with which he avoided the points that were more closely concerned with the duplicity of the inner plot, and dwelt on those where he could be sincere.
"It will depend greatly on the solidarity of the movement and the loyalty to each other of all concerned in it," I said at the close.
"That is the pith and marrow of it all; and of that there cannot be a doubt. There are some twenty of us here," he exclaimed, with a wave of the hand round the room; "and each of us represents and can speak for at least one strong interest and section. Besides, we are not groping in the dark. I myself have secured assurances from Berlin. We have not a weak link."
He stopped, and looked at me with an invitation to make my declaration.
I noticed, too, that in some way the fact had communicated itself to the rest of those present that the moment of importance had arrived. They had at first drawn a little away from the table at which we two sat; and I had seen many little quick glances shot in our direction during the discussion between the baron and myself; but there had been no check in the general flow of chatter.
Now, however, there was a decided lull, save where one man was telling noisily an incident in which he had been the principal and was laughing at his own joke. The rest were for the most part smoking stolidly with only low murmurs of broken talk.