Mr Gerry Adams's confirmation that he has asked the IRA to make "a ground-breaking move on the arms issue" caused immediate dismay and disappointment in Mr David Trimble's office.
Not, the reader should be assured, for any reasons of party calculation, or even concerning the peace process itself - but because in all probability the Ulster Unionist leader, for the third year running, will have to cancel his plans to attend the Wexford Festival Opera later this week.
Mr Trimble likes to travel. But his disappointment at having to shelve his plans last night will have been accompanied by the exhilarating thought that the journey on which he has been embarked for more than three years - long, tedious, dirty and dangerous - may be about to end in vindication.
Having risked all to enter government with Sinn FΘin - and, again, by resigning on July 1st - Mr Trimble now awaits an IRA action which many republicans have long maintained would be tantamount to their surrender.
The Ulster Unionist leader will almost certainly keep his own counsel - and will wisely refuse to commit - until he sees the colour of the IRA's money, or, to be precise, the terms of Gen John de Chastelain's report on the scale and nature of any decommissioning , or putting of weapons beyond use, now undertaken.
However that decision to miss the opera is the clearest indication that Mr Trimble fully expects to be seeking re-election as First Minister in the power-sharing Executive within a matter of days.
His success is not guaranteed. The whole point of his resignation strategy was to force a different outcome to the first suspension of the agreement provoked by his post-dated resignation threat in February last year.
When he resigned Mr Trimble knew he did not have the votes to carry him back into office even if he so wished. And at this writing he is without the assurance of a majority of unionists voting for him if the Assembly is convened for the purpose of electing First and Deputy First Ministers .
Assuming a positive IRA response to Mr Adams's request, the immediate spotlight will fall on the dissident Assembly Member for North Down, Mr Peter Weir.
However any calculation of his voting intentions may well turn on the reaction of Mr Jeffrey Donaldson. If travel plans are any guide then it might seem that the Lagan Valley MP, understood to be leaving shortly for Australia, is not planning an early meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council at which to launch another tilt at Mr Trimble's leadership. The assessment in the Trimble camp last night was that Mr Donaldson - while waiting to "watch the weather" as one critic put it - has actually positioned himself to accept the expected IRA move. That cannot be taken for granted, however.
Mr Donaldson has previously insisted that a start to decommissioning must be accompanied by a clear indication of the modalities to be employed and a timetable for its completion.
Moreover, party insiders say he will certainly be keeping a weather-eye on Mr David Burnside MP - like himself a possible future leadership contender - who the Trimble camp think has positioned himself for rejection.
It seems clear the Trimble leadership is readying itself to give a positive welcome to the IRA move believed to be foreshadowed by Mr Adams. Asked about the likely demand of some unionists for a clear republican commitment to an ongoing process of putting weapons beyond use, one party source said last night: "We've been urging them to cross this rubicon for three years. We're not going to ask that they do it in sackcloth and ashes."
Moreover, there seems to be some confidence in British and UUP circles that - whether the IRA moves in respect of one, two or three arms dumps - the quantities of weapons involved will be significant and the method of their destruction satisfactory to Gen de Chastelain.
It is also expected that the general will want to take an inventory beforehand, and that rendering the contents of any dump permanently unusable would require the injection of concrete rather than mere concrete-capping.
If Mr Trimble does not demand specific assurance about subsequent and future IRA actions over arms, then it seems equally clear that "the atmospherics" and language accompanying any move now will be important. The production of 10 rusty rifles and a "that's your lot" type pronouncement would obviously see Mr Trimble's position implode pretty quickly.
For the moment, however, Mr Trimble and his would-be ministers - who resigned much more reluctantly than he did - are again travelling hopefully.
And if Mr Weir declines to play ball, the calculation seems to be that some other notionally anti-agreement unionists from the smaller groupings might find it prudent to be caught in a traffic jam on the day of the Assembly vote.
For if the IRA does indeed make a gesture which satisfies the British and Irish governments it will almost certainly be made clear to unionist rejectionists that a fresh Assembly election, and not suspension, would follow.