h an attendant mordant
wit, and a mastery of tactics unfamiliar to the minds and capacities of
Englishmen, made him a great factor in the wide world of haute
politique; but it also drew upon him a wealth of secret hatred and
outward attention. His follies were lashed by the tongues of virtue and
of slander; but his abilities gave him a commanding place in the arena
of international politics.

As Byng and his party approached, the eyes of the ambassador and of
Lady Tynemouth were directed towards Ian Stafford. The glance of the
former was ironical and a little sardonic. He had lately been deeply
engaged in checkmating the singularly skilful and cleverly devised
negotiations by which England was to gain a powerful advantage in
Europe, the full significance of which even he had not yet pierced.
This he knew, but what he apprehended with the instinct of an almost
scientific sense became unduly important to his mind. The author of the
profoundly planned international scheme was this young man, who had
already made the chancelleries of Europe sit up and look about them in
dismay; for its activities were like those of underground wires; and
every area of diplomacy, the nearest, the most remote, was mined and
primed, so that each embassy played its part with almost startling
effect. Tibet and Persia were not too far, and France was not too near
to prevent the incalculably smooth working of a striking and
far-reaching political move. It was the kind of thing that England's
Prime Minister, with his extraordinary frankness, with his equally
extraordinary secretiveness, insight and immobility, delighted in; and
Slavonia and its ambassador knew, as an American high in place had
colloquially said, "that they were up against a proposition which would
take some moving."

The scheme had taken some moving. But it had not yet succeeded; and if
M. Mennaval, the ambassador of Moravia, influenced by Count Landrassy,
pursued his present tactics on behalf of his government, Ian Stafford's
coup would never be made, and he would have to rise to fame in
diplomacy by slower processes. It was the daily business of the
Slavonian ambassador to see that M. Mennaval of Moravia was not
captured either by tactics, by smooth words, or all those arts which
lay beneath the outward simplicity of Ian Stafford and of those who
worked with him.

With England on the verge of war, the outcome of the negotiations was a
matter of vital importance. It might mean