“You needn’t worry,” said Cassleton, continuing in that familiar tone which surprised himself, “Terrard’ll talk to you before me, just as he would if I wasn’t there.”
“Well, there must be some record,” said Trefusis, “and we leave it at that.”
They had nothing more to say one to the other; each feared a breach, for each knew too much about the other. Perhaps the more powerful of the two feared it most. For now there were special reasons for hanging together, and those reasons became stronger than ever when Terrard was shown in, greeted Cassleton, and took his place for discussion.
That discussion was of no great length, the two sole motives which urge men in the world to which these men belonged, the motives of avarice and fear combined, were at work and acting with their accustomed command and power.
There was the less ground for delay when Terrard protested that he had no power to negotiate. He told them that he was but the mouthpiece of the principal. He could only repeat the message he had himself been given, that Mr. Petre was willing to transact; that Mr. Petre thought it common sense to transact; that if Mr. Trefusis would not transact, then Mr. Petre would not transact; but that if Mr. Trefusis would transact, then he, Mr. Petre, was free to meet him at any time or place he would, Mr. Petre being a free man.
Trefusis elaborately drew a five-pointed star with a pencil upon a piece of paper, tracing odd curves about it, as he heard this simple statement of the position.
“Would Mr. Petre come here at eleven o’clock to-morrow morning, Mr. Terrard?” he said.
“I have no doubt he would,” said Terrard easily. “I will ring you up just beforehand, but I’m pretty sure he’ll come round; he’s one of those men who never seem to have much to do.” Here he rose to go. “Yet he seems to get a lot done somehow, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Trefusis....
Next morning at eleven Mr. Petre and Charlie Terrard were shown with some pomp into the room where they found Trefusis and Cassleton awaiting them. And one of those exchanges which determine the lives of millions in our modern democracy began between those four men, within those four walls.