FOUR days had passed and the penny had finally dropped. Just last Thursday night - as Northern Ireland teetered on the brink - Sir Patrick Mayhew told a disbelieving BBC interviewer: "Cheer up, for Heaven's sake."
At the weekend, Mary Holland allowed this might have reflected the Northern Secretary's assessment of the catastrophe which Drumcree carried in its wake. Others detected the weariness of a long serving Northern Secretary confirmed in his decision to bow out at the general election.
It was an extraordinary, and many thought offensive, performance - a reminder of the opera in which no one died, analogous too with Mr Peter Brooke's Unhappy and untimely rendition of My Darling Clementine.
Whatever the explanation, Sir Patrick sang an altogether different tune in the House of Commons yesterday. MPs assembled in sombre mood to hear his statement on the events of the past 10 days.
The advance notice had done the trick. The Conservative and Labour benches were well filled for a Monday afternoon. And as the Northern Secretary rose to the despatch box, there was the assurance that the air of solemnity was unlikely to be challenged neither the SDLP (who were en route to Dublin) or the DUP members (who were in session in Belfast) had turned up. And while Mr David Trimble's team were present in reasonable force, they clearly weren't in the mood for confrontation.
The confrontations of the past 10 days, said Sir Patrick, had been "a black period for Northern Ireland ... the worst setback for many years
Throughout this period, "massive and completely unacceptable civil disorder had occurred, on both sides of the community, totally wrongful in character and unjust in its consequences for all its victims". Intimidation, including of RUC officers and their families, had been rife. Deep fears and anxieties had been generated on all sides. Trust and confidence had suffered greatly.
Having established, finally, that there was nothing to be cheerful about, it became clear that other realities had dawned on Sir Patrick. After a weekend of huffing and puffing, he had bowed to the inevitable and confirmed that a meeting of the AngloIrish InterGovernmental Conference would proceed this week. The British, in fact, could not have resisted Dublin as demand for this without resiling from the 1985 Agreement itself.
Having, according to Labour's Dr Mo Mowlam's account, procrastinated since this time last year, Sir Patrick had concluded that the events at Drumcree and the lower Ormeau Road "have underscored the potential destabilising effect of controversial parades".
He therefore proposed to establish a review, based on evidence any interested party would be free to submit. The details - the chairmanship, terms of reference and so on - would come later.
But these recent events were simply a symptom "of the much deeper divisions which plague Northern Ireland". And while the current scene was certainly grave it did have a crucially positive element: "We have in place a democratic process of political talks, for which a large majority of the electorate has voted."
Sir Patrick said it was imperative that that process "begins to address the substantive issues that lie at the heart of the divisions which have had such terrible consequences".
That process would be resuming today at Stormont. And he and the Prime Minister would meet the leaders of the parties in coming days to hear their view on the way forward.
Sir Patrick could hardly have done, or offered, much better in the circumstances. But it carried little conviction.
One of the party leaders, Dr Ian Paisley, was in party conference in Belfast - reportedly contemplating withdrawal from the inter party talks. A second, Mr John Hume, was heading for talks with the Taoiseach, having confirmed his party's boycott of the elected Forum. A third, Dr John Alderdice, does not have a Westminster seat.
A fourth, Mr David Trimble, later welcomed what he clearly saw as a step back to the 1992 talks process. The UUP leader told a Westminster press conference he would contribute positively to the ongoing inter party talks - but he wasn't sure "it's realistic to hold out the prospect of much progress being made".
Back in the Commons chamber, many MPs clearly felt Mr Trimble had played his part in ensuring that. Dr Mowlam said the RUC had been placed in an impossible position when faced with "a coordinated show of hostile activity across Northern Ireland".
She said "the consent to comply with the rule of law did not exist with the Portadown Orange lodge and they were not encouraged to do so by constitutional politicians, and they should have done".
Sir David Steel, for the Liberal Democrats, delivered the most stinging criticism, inviting Sir Patrick to agree that they were entitled to a higher standard of leadership last week.
But the Northern Secretary said it was probably "not helpful for me to engage in attributions of blame". And he in turn had to listen to the Tory MPs, Mr Norman Lamont and Mr David Wilshire, call for the end of the AngloIrish Agreement and recognise there could be "no middle way between unionism and nationalism".
Sir Patrick also had to withstand the shock of Dr Mowlam's first all out attack. She told him he was "partly responsible" for what had happened. But then she censured herself for failing to press her case to sufficient effect, urged everyone else to accept their share of the blame, and made it clear that her constructive criticisms in no way endangered the bipartisan policy.