The Ambassador rose from his seat and stood upon the hearthrug with his back to the fire. There was a streak of colour upon his sallow cheeks, and his eyes shone brightly underneath his heavy brows. He had removed his spectacles and was swinging them lightly between his thumb and forefinger. "I will be frank with you," he said. "My opinion is a favourable one. I shall apply for leave of absence to-morrow. In a week all that you have said shall be laid before my master. Such as my personal influence is, it will be exerted on behalf of the acceptance of your scheme. The greatest difficulty will be, of course, in persuading the Emperor of its practicability--in plain words, that what you say you have to offer will have the importance which you attribute to it." "If you fail in that," Mr. Sabin said, also rising, "send for me! But bear this in mind, if my scheme should after all be ineffective, if it should fail in the slightest detail to accomplish all that I claim for it, what can you lose? The payment is conditional upon its success; the bargain is all in your favour. I should not offer such terms unless I held certain cards. Remember, if there are difficulties send for me!" "I will do so," the Ambassador said as he buttoned his overcoat. "Now give me a limit of time for our decision." "Fourteen days," Mr. Sabin said. "How I shall temporise with Lobenski so long I cannot tell. But I will give you fourteen days from to-day. It is ample!" The two men exchanged farewells and parted. Mr. Sabin, with a cigarette between his teeth, and humming now and then a few bars from one of Verdi's operas, commenced to carefully select a bagful of golf clubs from a little pile which stood in one corner of the room. Already they bore signs of considerable use, and he handled them with the care of an expert, swinging each one gently, and hesitating for some time between a wooden or a metal putter, and longer still between the rival claims of a bulger and a flat-headed brassey. At last the bag was full; he resumed his seat and counted them out carefully. "Ten," he said to himself softly. "Too many; it looks amateurish." Some of the steel heads were a little dull; he took a piece of chamois leather from the pocket of the bag and began polishing them. As they grew brighter he whistled softly to himself. This time the opera tune seemed to have escaped him; he was whistling the "Marseillaise!" CHAPTER XVIII "HE HAS GONE TO THE EMPEROR!" The Ambassador, when he left Mr. Sabin's house, stepped into a hired hansom and drove off towards Arlington Street. A young man who had watched him come out, from the other side of the way, walked swiftly to the corner of the street and stepped into a private brougham which was waiting there. "To the Embassy," he said. "Drive fast!" The carriage set him down in a few minutes at the house to which Densham and Harcutt had followed Mr. Sabin on the night of their first meeting with him. He walked swiftly into the hall.