This is a potentially dangerous week for Northern Ireland, and for the political process there. That assertion will jar with the relatively benign assumptions still attending the Mitchell review.
True, Mr David Trimble tells his party there is no deal on the table, and nobody this weekend has been prepared to predict sudden breakthrough. True, for all the improved atmospherics, the Ulster Unionists still adamantly insist "no guns no government" - and Sinn Fein insists it cannot speak for or commit the IRA to decommissioning. Even so . . . the hope persists.
George Mitchell certainly hasn't given up yet. In truth, of course, his refusal to leave the table might be the only reason for the two parties remaining at it. Against that is the obvious fact that the quality of the engagement under his chairmanship has been significantly better than what went before. So much so, indeed, that one normally cynical insider ventured: "I'm beginning to think that if you keep them talking they'll eventually talk themselves into something."
Moreover, it is reasonable to assume that if the senator thinks he has any cards to play, he, too, will conceal his hand until that famous 59th minute of the 11th hour.
However, not even Senator Mitchell can forever postpone a judgment as to when the midnight hour must strike. And he will know, as well as the Sinn Fein and Ulster Unionist leaderships, that that very benign hope - that they will eventually talk themselves into agreeing something - might be received very differently in the republican and unionist heartlands.
The operative assumption, of course, is that Mr Gerry Adams's leadership is secure, and that Mr Trimble is the one with all the problems. Whatever pressures the Sinn Fein leader may be facing, there are clear signs of unease within the Trimble camp at the further extension of the review. Three senior unionist politicians loyal to Mr Trimble have this weekend told The Irish Times they consider prolonged dialogue - in the absence of any republican offer on decommissioning - actually damaging to their negotiating position.
They were acutely conscious that a continuing review shrouded in secrecy is contributing to growing suspicion in the unionist ranks about Mr Trimble's ultimate intention. Their view, moreover, was that it was needlessly so - since in their estimation Mr Trimble has neither inclination nor scope to deviate from his declared position.
Some interest was aroused by the fourth of the options listed by Mr Trimble to his party executive on Friday - the one which might spell success and involve "some pain" for both sides. Few serious players now doubt that Mr Trimble would technically be prepared to jump first, and form the executive, ahead of any actual decommissioning. But he has repeatedly made it clear that flexibility over the "sequencing" of events - triggering the d'Hondt procedure, the appointment of an IRA interlocutor to the International Commission, the "shadow" period for preparing a programme of government, agreement on the modalities for decommissioning, and the transfer of powers from Westminster - is possible only in the context of a clear republican commitment to decommission.
Without that commitment, the issue of sequencing simply doesn't arise in any meaningful sense. As at present defined, moreover, the UUP requirement is for a commitment to comply with the modalities and timetables set by the International Commission for a "process of decommissioning" leading to total disarmament by May 2000.
Few outside his own ranks believe Mr Trimble will get anything of the sort. And there has to be a possibility that he could be tempted by something less - maybe a combination of new language and an initial "voluntary" act by the IRA, as evidence of good intent, and credible enough to justify a conclusion by him that republicans had crossed the crucial psychological barrier.
The internal unionist arithmetic makes it by no means certain he could get away with that. Certainly such a scenario would trigger the final showdown with the anti-agreement forces in his own party. But it is impossible to find anyone who remotely counts within the UUP prepared to countenance the creation of the executive without at least some actual IRA "product".
In the review to date it appears there has been an advance in terms of Sinn Fein language. It is also believed the IRA would now be prepared to appoint an interlocutor to deal directly with Gen de Chastelain - but without commitment either about time tabling or end result. If that remains the republican bottom line, unionist sources say there will be no deal.
"No result but no crash landing either" was one insider's confident prediction on Saturday morning, before Senator Mitchell's decision to continue the talking into this week. And, barring some last-minute magic from him, a "soft landing" and work-in-progress would seem the best outcome the two governments can hope for - with a decision to be made as to whether Senator Mitchell carries on, or hands the process back to them.
But will they be permitted a soft landing? Mr Seamus Mallon clearly has no belief in such an outcome. Significantly, too, perhaps, Mr Pat Doherty on Saturday night reminded us that Sinn Fein shared the frustration of the populace at large at the continuing failure to implement the Belfast Agreement.
It should also be recalled that Sinn Fein began this phase of the review a fortnight ago with a clear threat that failure to establish the executive could see it withdraw from the Stormont Assembly.
Unionist and official sources at the time appeared confident this was a bluff. Maybe it was. On the other hand, republicans might consider this a relatively cost-free way to bring home to London and Dublin the growing crisis in the peace process they will surely proclaim if, in fact, the review delivers a non-result.
Mr Trimble last week expressed confident belief that they would succeed "sooner or later". And - again assuming no deliverance this week - a willingness by Sinn Fein to go along with a soft landing would lend credibility to his implicit suggestion that the qualitative change in the UUP/Sinn Fein dialogue points to ultimate success.
But it is by no means guaranteed. This process, for republicans, is about much more than the creation of a power-sharing executive.