Busy shops, bustling bars and flowing traffic: the continuation of normal life in the North said it all.
The Portadown Orangemen appear to have failed at Drumcree. There has been an undoubted lack of support from grassroots Protestants.
Portadown District Lodge's call for "spontaneous and sporadic" protests yesterday certainly failed.
On Monday the order had brought Belfast to a standstill. Shops and businesses closed. Almost all arterial roads were blocked. Yesterday the contrast could not have been greater.
The city centre was full of shoppers enjoying the summer sales. Traffic flowed normally. Outside Belfast the story was the same. Even in Portadown roads were not obstructed. About 100 protesters were there.
The removal of the steel barricade and other security measures at Drumcree effectively acknowledged that the Orange threat was over. The loyal sons and daughters of Ulster had refused to take to the streets.
Despite the claim of success after Monday's protests, the writing was already on the wall. Roads were blocked by handfuls, not hundreds, of loyalists. And it was not hard men at the barricades, but mostly women and children.
Some observers believe the violence of the initial Drumcree protests last week alienated support in the mainstream Protestant community.
Certainly unionist politicians - even the most stridently anti-agreement ones - went out of their way to condemn the violence.
The DUP notably distanced itself from the protests. There was no triumphal visit to Drumcree by the Rev Ian Paisley as on past occasions.
But to blame the lack of support on the violence is an oversimplification.
In previous years Drumcree protesters were involved in far more serious violence - petrolbombing businesses, intimidating hundreds of nationalists from their homes, and killing Catholics - and there was still substantial support for the Orangemen at Drumcree.
The difference between then and now is that the Protestant community is demoralised, not defiant. Hardline unionists have failed to bring down the Belfast Agreement or overthrow Mr David Trimble. Sinn Fein is in government, and they have not been able to do anything about it.
Many have lost heart. Loyalists do not have the republicans' long tradition of rebellion. While they are prepared to cause sporadic disruption, the commitment to a lengthy period of civil unrest is missing.
The loyalist community is also riven by internal splits. The Orange Order is divided on strategy, as illustrated by the public dispute between Portadown District Lodge and the Grand Lodge of Ireland. The paramilitary groups, too, are fragmented.
But, most importantly, the momentum of Drumcree has been lost since 1997.
The following year the murder of the three Quinn children turned moderate Protestant and international opinion against the order. Last year Drumcree completely failed to take off.
Orangemen claim Mr Blair promised they would be allowed to march if their protest was low-key and peaceful. They allege that when they realised he had no intention of keeping his pledge, the heat was already taken out of the situation.
Rallying the troops for Drumcree 2000 was always going to be difficult.
The Orange Order, once perhaps the most important political and religious institution in the North, now looks a shadow of its former self. The Portadown Orangemen's failure this week seems so comprehensive that it is hard to imagine them reversing it. Drumcree 2001 does not seem at all likely to be intimidating.
Portadown Orangemen are insisting their campaign will continue, but without road blocks or street violence. It will surely be a toothless tiger. Mr Trimble will undoubtedly be relieved by events and will be hoping that the future anti-agreement unionist challenge is seen off as easily.
The other winner is Sinn Fein. The last thing Mr Gerry Adams needed was an orgy of loyalist violence followed by a U-turn by the authorities on the Drumcree march. Such developments would have played right into the hands of republican dissidents.
There would be problems for Mr Martin McGuinness if he was a minister in an administration which presided over Orange feet tramping down the Garvaghy Road.
Last weekend Drumcree cast a dark shadow over the peace process. Few observers thought it would have passed off so easily.
The Assembly is in recess, but the North's pro-agreement politicians had waited to see what happened in Portadown before making holiday plans.