Next to the Sovereign, this tall, thin-faced, grey-bearded man, with the rather ascetic, aquiline features and keen dark eyes that age had not dimmed, was the most potent personage in the British Empire. The room in which he was sitting at the big pedestal writing-table was on the first floor of the Foreign Office, a spacious apartment, solidly furnished and of a very business-like appearance. In that room Ambassadors and Envoys Plenipotentiary had discussed matters of such importance, in such a way, that if those walls had ears to listen and tongues to repeat, the whole of Europe would have been in arms on many an occasion. Placed as far from the door as possible, the most conspicuous object in the room was the Prime Minister’s table, standing on the right, close to the fireplace of black and white marble, with a plain, gilt-framed mirror above, and one of those ordinary square marble clocks which may be found in almost every middle-class dining-room. In a small bookcase close to his lordship’s left hand was a library of reference works; while to his right, in the centre of the apartment, was a round table covered with books, where the current issue of the Times was lying.
In front of the great statesman was a long lounge, upholstered in dark green leather, as was the rest of the furniture, and upon the wall behind the lounge a rack containing a large number of maps. Two or three deep armchairs, a couple of other tables and several revolving bookcases completed the furniture of the private room of the head of the Cabinet. At the table sat the marquess toying idly with his quill, while upon the leather-covered lounge before him sat Chisholm, the Under-secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
They were alone, with the door closed against intruders. The greyness of the short afternoon had become more and more pronounced during their conversation, and as neither had risen to switch on the electric light the room was in semi-darkness. Chisholm was thankful, for he was uneasy, and feared that his face might betray him to that keen and practised statesman beneath whose calm gaze many a diplomatist, whether British or foreign, had so often trembled. A rather cold, but exceedingly courteous man, Lord Stockbridge always spoke with slow deliberation, and with a gentleness that one would scarcely have expected from a man of such an austere manner. He was an autocrat both at the Foreign Office and in the Cabinet, always ruling with a firm hand, exhibiting a strange individualism in responsibility, bestowing but little praise upon any of Britain’s hard-working representatives abroad; but he was a patriot, and every inch a gentleman. Representatives of certain of the Powers at the Court of St. James held him in dread—they even hated him, because of his integrity, his calm dignity, and his shrewd foresight. They knew that he was not a man to be tricked, and that in his anger the British lion showed its teeth.
To this rather melancholy man with the grave face and the quick dark eyes the British nation chiefly owed the retention of its position as the first Power in the world. During his fifteen years of office the European outlook had, times without number, been of a grim blackness, and the war-cloud had hovered on the political horizon almost incessantly; yet, by means of his careful statesmanship and the marvellous tact and finesse constantly exhibited by him, this splendid politician had succeeded in piloting the ship of state into quieter waters.
Like his trusted Under-Secretary, he was a man who hated popularity, although he was equally popular in England and throughout the great Empire oversea. He detested cheap notoriety; he always declared that he left that sort of thing to the Opposition benches. In a word, he was an honest, straightforward, patriotic Englishman, the most trusted of Her Majesty’s Ministers, and the greatest living statesman in Europe.
Had he not acted with firmness and discretion, as well as with quick foresight, Great Britain would a dozen times have been at war with her jealous neighbours. More than once conspiracies, deeply laid and skilfully engineered, had been in progress in some diplomatic circles for the purpose of inveigling England into hostilities; but his power of keen penetration and swift deduction had caused the efforts of our enemies to be thwarted and they themselves to be discomfited by some remarkable coup in quite another direction. It was the cackling cry of certain leader-writers that English diplomacy was abortive, that other nations left us behind in the race, and that our Ambassadors and Ministers were merely bunglers. These prophets (hired at the rate of two guineas a column) always conveniently overlooked the fact that the world virtually owed its peace and consequent prosperity to the thin-faced, rather haggard-looking, man who was the personal friend, confidant and adviser of his venerated and peace-loving Sovereign.
He sat there in the half light twisting his quill in his thin hands, a sign that he was puzzled.
“The situation is undoubtedly critical, Chisholm,” he said in a low voice. “I confess I cannot make it out in the least. The whole thing appears to me an enigma at present.”
“Have you received no further despatch from Vienna?” inquired the Under-Secretary.
“Yes. One came through in cipher a couple of hours ago. But it tells us nothing. Farncombe is apparently without information.”