It was the best of votes; it was the worst of votes. Trimble won, and we all know the bookmakers pay out on a short head the same as on four lengths. But it was a comma or semi-colon in the unionist saga, not a full stop.
"One party, two leaders" was how a delegate described the situation. The No people have brought their level of support up from 43 to 47 per cent and the obvious temptation is to keep pushing: Trimble has to win all the time, but his opponents need to win only once.
There was little joy on the faces of the delegates from either camp. The No people had been beaten by a small but not entirely negligible margin. It would be much harder to bring down an Executive than to block its formation. They would retreat temporarily to the long grass and wait for an issue to arise which they could use to unhorse Trimble.
"There's two parties here under this roof," a leading No lobbyist remarked as he left the Waterfront Hall.
The Yes camp had won by a slightly greater margin than some of them had expected. Some of the No people cynically said it was "the payroll vote", generated by those who were drawing salaries under the new arrangements. Italian coalitions used to last less than a year on average, but the Executive due to be reborn at midnight tonight may be more rocky still. There are numerous faultlines.
The most obvious one lies between the UUP and Sinn Fein. Even now, there is apprehension over what Martin and Bairbre might want to do about hoisting flags on government buildings during Coronation Day on Friday.
Then there is the even more difficult issue of decommissioning. Mr Cyril Ramaphosa and Mr Martti Ahtisaari would need to turn in a report on their IRA dumps inspection pretty quickly if Trimble is to have something to wave around to prove that his faith in the IRA statement was not misplaced.
There are other cracks beneath the surface. The Trimble/Mallon relationship has never been great, and will be tested to the utmost in coming months. The rivalry between the SDLP and Sinn Fein is a sub-plot to the Trimble/Mallon story.
With a possible Westminster election next May, not to mention the local government poll during the same month, the two nationalist parties are already locked in mortal combat.
Inevitably, the SDLP may not be well disposed to a gesture which makes Trimble's life easier, if such a move can be exploited by republicans.
There is no official word from the Democratic Unionist Party on its intentions. Observers differ on the likelihood of Mr Peter Robinson and Mr Nigel Dodds resuming their ministerial posts. In the normal course of events, the state cars would be arriving at their front doors tomorrow morning. What will they do? The party has been engaged in a fundamental review of strategy and a meeting of its executive is scheduled for tomorrow night.
If Robinson returns, what chance a good relationship between himself and Sir Reg Empey, given that the latter is seen as a potential rival for the DUP man's Westminster seat in the East Belfast constituency?
One could say that republicans were the dogs that didn't bark last week. But great care and tact should be exercised with even the most innocent and well-meaning canine analogies, given the furore caused by Mr Trimble's repeated comments that Sinn Fein needed to be "house-trained". This gave great offence in republican and wider nationalist circles, where it was seen as an indication that even if Trimble was campaigning to go back into a power-sharing executive, he had still not got into the spirit of the thing. What price pluralism when you talk about bringing one of your coalition partners to heel? Imagine Bertie Ahern speaking like that about the Progressive Democrats.
There was republican concern too about the claims by Mr John Taylor that he had won a concession from the British government on policing. He did not read out the text of his letter at the UUC meeting but, given the reported lack of trust between Sinn Fein and London, there is grave anxiety that Tony Blair may have gone too far - and not for the first time.
But perhaps the biggest faultline is within the UUP itself, where there is a continuing lack of enthusiasm for the whole enterprise, even among supporters of the leadership. A leading backer of Trimble described the nerve-wracking wait for the final tally on Saturday, when some votes appeared to have gone missing and there were fears of a recount. Succour was being taken from the fact that the No camp was divided several ways, from Donaldson pragmatists to hardline opponents of any form of power-sharing, even with the SDLP.
There was fear that the forthcoming by-election for the late Clifford Forsythe's Westminster seat in South Antrim, expected sometime in September, would be turned into another referendum on the Belfast Agreement.
Even pro-agreement unionists are often simply going along with the new dispensation, rather than embracing it wholeheartedly. "Governing ourselves is not our first priority," one of them said. They speak in slightly bemused tones about the Prime Minister's "evangelical" zeal for the peace process. "Tony thinks it's about religion."
They are not sure that the ecumenical Mr Blair understands that the British link, partition and the preservation of the British identity are the real issues in Northern Ireland, rather than religion as such.
Senior unionists predicted that the restored Executive would be chaotic. "Every time Sinn Fein do something, there will be a crisis," one said.
They were disappointed when Mr Martin McGuinness, rather than the more moderate-sounding Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, took a ministry. In the end, though, it was Ms Bairbre de Brun rather than McGuinness who got unionist backs up with her decision to centralise maternity services in West Belfast.
The mood in the No camp was mixed. There was the satisfaction of knowing that another 29 votes would have sunk Trimble. But there was a new concern that the clever leader had bought time in which to fudge the issue of decommissioning. Despite the closeness of the vote, there was a sneaking suspicion that Trimble "might have gotten away with it".
But the No lobby comforted itself with the thought that, in three or four months time, when there may be no flags over those government buildings controlled by Sinn Fein Ministers, when the RUC name may have been consigned to the shelf of a parliamentary library, when decommissioning has failed to materialise, they can marshal their 60 signatures and requisition a special meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council.
It may be too soon therefore to speak about a watershed at the Waterfront. But Trimble is untrammelled by formal conditions, other than the commission of party elders which will monitor progress on weapons and other issues. The proposed reform of the UUC could generate a considerably larger majority for Trimble in the future. The Young Unionist delegation could have its wings clipped and a review of the relationship with the Orange Order would also have voting implications (although 40 per cent of the Orange delegation was believed to have voted for Mr Trimble on Saturday).
Some commentators sense that the Trimble era may be foreshortened and that the shadow of Brian Faulkner is closing over him. But there is general acknowledgement that he fought his corner hard in the past 10 days.
As one observer put it: "He really earned his Nobel Prize money."