“William for one, I’d imagine,” said Donal. “This isn’t his way of doing things—piecemeal. But you can bet as long as he’s about returning it, he’ll exact a price for it.”

Galt shook his head.

“I don’t follow you,” he said.

“William finds himself working with the Venus group right now,” Donal pointed out. “But he’s hardly out to do them a kindness. His own aims are what concerns him—and it’s those he’ll be after in the long run. In fact, if you look, I’ll bet you see two kinds of negotiations going on at this Conference. The short range, and the long range. The short range is likely to be this matter of an open market. The long range will be William’s game.”

Galt sacked on his pipe again.

“I don’t know,” he said, heavily. “I don’t hold any more of a brief for William than you do—but you seem to lay everything at his doorstep. Are you sure you aren’t a little overboard where the subject of him is concerned?”

“How can anyone be sure?” confessed Donal, wryly. “I think what I think about William, because—” he hesitated, “if I were in his shoes, I’d be doing these things I suspect him of.” He paused. “William’s weight on our side could swing the conference into putting enough pressure on New Earth to get the old government back in power, couldn’t it?”

“Why—of course.”

“Well, then.” Donal shrugged. “What could be better than William setting forth a compromise solution that at one and the same time puts him in the opposite camp and conceals as well as requires a development in the situation he desires?” “Well—I can follow that,” said Galt, slowly. “But if that’s the case, what’s he after? What is it he’ll want?”

Donal shook his head.

“I’m not sure,” he said carefully. “I don’t know.”

On that rather inconclusive note, they ended their own private talk and Galt took Donal off to meet with some of the other delegates.

The meeting developed, as these things do, into a cocktail gathering in the lounges of the suite belonging to Project Blaine of Venus. Blaine himself, Donal was interested to discover, was a heavy, calm-looking white-haired man who showed no surface evidences of the character Galt had implied to him.

“Well, what do you think of him?” Galt murmured, as they left Blaine and his wife in the process of circulating around the other guests.

“Brilliant,” said Donal. “But I hardly think someone to be afraid of.” He met Galt’s raised eyebrows with a smile. “He seems too immersed in his own point of view. I’d consider him predictable.”

“As opposed to William?” asked Galt, in a low voice.

“As opposed to William,” agreed Donal. “Who is not—or, not so much.”