“Ah me!” he sighed, “what an uphill fight this has become, and day by day it grows harder. Day by day we lose power; one hold after another slips from our grasp. Perhaps it means that this vast organisation is effete--perhaps, after all, we are dying of inanition, and yet--yet it should not be, for we have the people still.... Ah! I hear footsteps. This is our journalistic friend, no doubt. I think he will prove interesting.” A moment later someone knocked softly at the door. There was a slight shuffling of feet, and Christian Vellacott entered the room alone. There was a peculiar dull expression in his eyes, as if he were suffering pain, mental or physical. After glancing at the mirror, the Provincial rose and bowed formally with his hand upon the back of his chair. As the Englishman came forward the Jesuit glanced at his face, and with a polite motion of the hand he said: “Sir, take the trouble of seating yourself,” speaking in French at once, with no apology, as if well aware that his companion knew that language as perfectly as his own. “Thank you,” replied Christian. He drew the chair slightly forward as he seated himself, and fixed his eyes upon the Jesuit's face. Through the entire interview he never removed his gaze, and he noticed that until the last words were spoken those soft, deep eyes were never raised to his. “I suppose,” said the Jesuit at length, almost humbly, “that we are irreconcilable enemies, Mr. Vellacott?” The manner in which this was spoken did not bear the slightest resemblance to the cold superiority with which René Drucquer had been treated. The Englishman sat with one lean hand resting on the table and watched. He knew that some reply was expected, but in face of that knowledge he chose to remain silent. It was a case of Greek meeting Greek. The inscrutable Provincial had met a foeman worthy of his steel at last. His strange magnetic influence threw itself vainly against a will as firm as his own, and he felt that his incidental effects, dramatic and conversational, fell flat. Instantly he became interested in Christian Vellacott. “I need hardly remind a man of your discrimination, Mr. Vellacott,” he continued tentatively, “that there are two sides to every question.” The Englishman smiled and moved slightly in his chair, drawing in his feet and leaning forward. “Implying, I presume,” he said lightly, “that in this particular question you are on one side and I upon the other.” “Alas! it seems so.” Vellacott leant back in his chair again and crossed his legs. “In my turn,” he said quietly, “I must remind you, monsieur, that I am a journalist.” The Provincial raised his eyebrows almost imperceptibly and waited for his companion to continue. His silence and the momentary motion of his eyebrows, which in no way affected the lids, expressed admirably his failure to see the connection of his companion's remark.