As yet, the Browns had not attempted to repel the aggressor by arms for fear of complications, but were relying on the Gray government to order a withdrawal of the Gray force and the repudiation of a commander who had been guilty of so grave an international affront. The surprising and illuminating thing to Westerling was the inspired statement to the press from the Gray Foreign Office, adroitly appealing to Gray chauvinism and justifying the "intrepidity" of the Gray commander in response to so-called "pin-pricking" exasperations.
At the door of his apartment, François, his valet and factotum, gave Westerling a letter.
Westerling knew by a glance that it was, for it was addressed and marked "Personal" in the premier's own handwriting. A conference for ten that evening was requested in a manner that left no doubt of its urgency.
"Let me see, do I dine at the Countess Zalinski's to-night?" asked Westerling. Both François and his personal aide kept a list of his appointments.
"Not to-night, sir. To-night you--" said François.
"Good!" thought Westerling. "No excuses will be necessary to Marie in order to be at the premier's by ten."
Curiosity made him a little ahead of time, but he found the premier awaiting him in his study, free from interruption or eavesdropping.
In the shadow of the table lamp the old premier looked his years. His definite features were easy material for the caricaturist, who does not deal in halftones. A near view of them was not attractive. They had the largeness which impresses the gallery from the floor of a parliamentary chamber, where delicate lines of sensibility and character lack the quality which the actor supplies with his make-up. As is often the case with elderly statesmen, his face seemed like that of the crowd done boldly as a single face, while his shrewd eyes in a bed of crow's-feet, when they lighted to their purpose in confidence, expressed his understanding of the crowd and its thoughts and how it may be led.
From youth he had been in politics, ever a bold figure and a daring player, but now beginning to feel the pressure of younger men's elbows. Fonder even of power, which had become a habit, than in his twenties, he saw it slipping from his grasp at an age when the 'downfall of his government meant that he should never hold the reins again. He had been called an ambitious demagogue and a makeshift opportunist by his enemies, but the crowd liked him for his ready strategy, his genius for appealing phrases, and for the gambler's virtue which hitherto had made him a good loser.