For a moment he looked thoughtful.
“Not yet. I have their promise—the promise of the Emperor himself. But as yet my share of the bargain is incomplete. There must be no more delay. It must be finished now—at once. That telegram would never have been sent from Berlin but for their covenant with me. It would have been better, perhaps, had they waited a little time. But one cannot tell! The opportunity was too good to let slip.”
“How long will it be,” she asked, “before your work is complete?”
His face clouded over. In the greater triumph he had almost forgotten the minor difficulties of the present. He was a diplomatist and a schemer of European fame. He had planned great things, and had accomplished them. Success had been on his side so long that he might almost have been excused for declining to reckon failure amongst the possibilities. The difficulty which was before him now was as trifling as the uprooting of a hazel switch after the conquest of a forest of oaks. But none the less for the moment he was perplexed. It was hard, in the face of this need for urgent haste, to decide upon the next step.
“My work,” he said slowly, “must be accomplished at once. There is very little wanted. Yet that little, I must confess, troubles me.”
“You have not succeeded, then, in obtaining what you want from Lord Deringham?”
“No.”
“Will he not help you at all?”
“Never.”
“How, then, do you mean to get at these papers of his?”