“Yes,” he said.

“Then join me.” It was almost an order the way she said it. Donal showed no reaction, however, but crossed the lounge and took a seat opposite her. She began to set out the pieces.

If she expected to win, she was mistaken. Donal won three swift games; but oddly without showing any particular flair or brilliance. Consistently he seemed able to take advantage of opportunities she had overlooked, but which had been there before her in perfect obviousness all the time. The games seemed more a tribute to her obtuseness, than his perception. She said as much. He shrugged.

“You were playing me,” he said. “And you should rather have been playing my pieces.”

She frowned; but before she had a chance to sort this answer out in her mind, there was the sound of steps outside the lounge, and Galt entered, striding long and excitedly.

Donal and she both rose.

“What happened?” she cried. “Eh? What?” Galt’s attention had been all for Donal. Now the older man swung on her. “Didn’t he tell you what happened up to the time he left?”

“No!” She flashed a look at Donal, but his face was impassive.

Quickly, Galt told her. Her face paled and became shadowed by bewilderment. Again, she turned to Donal; but before she could frame the question in her mind, Donal was questioning Galt.

“And after I left?”

“You should have seen it!” the older man’s voice held a fierce glee. “Each one was at the throat of everybody else in the room before you were out of sight. I swear the last forty years of behind-the-scenes deals, and the crosses and the double-crosses came home to roost in the next five minutes. Nobody trusted anybody, everybody suspected everybody else! What a bombshell to throw in their laps!” Galt chuckled. “I feel forty years younger just for seeing it. Who was it that actually approached you, boy? It was William, wasn’t it?”

“I’d rather not say,” said Donal.

“Well, well—never mind that. For all practical purposes it could have been any of them. But guess what happened! Guess how it all ended up—”

“They voted me in as commander in chief after all?” said Donal.

“They—” Galt checked suddenly, his face dropping into an expression of amazement. “How’d you know?”

Donal smiled a little mirthlessly. But before he could answer, a sharp intake of breath made both men turn their heads. Anea was standing off a little distance from them, her face white and stiff.

“I might have suspected,” she said in a low, hard voice to Donal. “I might have known.”

“Known? Known what?” demanded Galt, staring from one to the other. But her eyes did not waver from Donal.