With just five days left to devolution day in Northern Ireland, the mood in London and Dublin is optimistic.
Prime minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern believe next Monday will see DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley join Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness to lead a new powersharing executive at Stormont - and that this time the partnership arrangements will last.
They have good grounds for doing so.
This newspaper has reported that the DUP leader sees no advantage in "waiting for Gordon" Brown, and is disposed to conclude the deal on Mr Blair's watch. Yet as The Irish Times and others have also reported, senior DUP MPs and a number of newly-elected Assembly members are still resisting Dr Paisley's apparent determination to meet the March 26th deadline.
What's going on? Is the DUP divided, or in danger of dividing, like the Ulster Unionist Party under David Trimble? Or is this just hard bargaining ahead of this week's negotiations in Downing Street?
And if Monday's deadline is not met, what then? Frank Millar, London Editor, addresses the questions and provides some answers
Q: First off: didn't the Assembly election earlier this month give Paisley a mandate to become first minister?
A: Yes, as and when he determines his terms have been met. He rightly said last week that his position had been strengthened by the election. All the DUP candidates stood on the same manifesto, and none was elected on a platform of opposition to power-sharing.
At the same time the challenge from Robert McCartney and others on the right imploded, while the UUP actually positioned itself to the left of the DUP.
Q: So, what's the problem? Are we seriously to believe Paisley has lost control of his party?
A: No. It still seems accepted by most of the doubters that the DUP officers and executive will fall in line if the leader determines to force the issue to a positive outcome later this week.
Q: So why doesn't he just push ahead?
A: He might very well do that.
Q: What's to stop him?
A: Possibly the strength of resistance - then calculations about party unity and future party management. Key to this is that not all the doubters are in principle against going into government with Sinn Féin. Some are certainly sheltering behind the executive's demand for a "credible" period in which to "test" Sinn Féin's bona fides on support for policing and the rule of law.
The suspicion is that MPs such as William McCrea and David Simpson might never be satisfied. For their colleagues Nigel Dodds and Gregory Campbell, on the other hand, it has seemed more a question of "when" not "if".
It makes sense that the DUP leadership would want to split and reduce those currently coalescing around the strictest interpretation of party policy.
Paisley might be tempted to cut up rough with anyone questioning his authority. However, deputy leader Peter Robinson, with his eye on the stability of a future administration, would likely argue for keeping Dodds and Campbell on board if possible.
Enthusiasts for an agreement thus explain that Robinson could be a critical figure as the party reaches the point of decision.
Q: But the two governments insist this is the moment of decision, that the "when" is now?
A: Absolutely. However (not least because of previous experience) many inside and outside the DUP don't believe the deadline is written in tablets of stone.
Also, some in the DUP will argue that any slippage is hardly their fault, since Sinn Féin left the St Andrews negotiations and delayed for some two months before calling the special ardfheis on policing.
Secretary of State Peter Hain says failure next week means dissolution of the Assembly and, moreover, that any subsequent attempt to revive devolution would require new elections. But Mr Dodds counters that a new Act of Parliament could simply reinstate the Assembly on the basis of the March 7th outcome.Moreover, the DUP leadership argued against setting the deadline and has always maintained it would be "condition- rather than calendar-led".
Hence the recurring notion that they might yet seek a delay, and present themselves as wholly consistent in doing so.
Q: Delay to when?
A: That's presumably the first question Mr Blair would ask. The Taoiseach (on the eve of his own party's ardfheis), and Sinn Féin would strongly resist any delay, pressing instead for immediate implementation of the Plan B arrangements for London-Dublin "joint stewardship" of Northern Ireland.
The British prime minister has overruled them before - as with the suspension of the first executive in January 2000 and the twice-postponed elections in 2003.
However, no matter how important to his "legacy" - and Downing Street insists on Ireland that is now secure, with or without devolution - it seems improbable Mr Blair would agree a postponement to yet another deadline that might or might not be met.
If on the other hand the DUP agreed to nominate ministers next week, say with the proviso that the executive would "go live" sometime in May - and in any event before his departure from office - some think it doubtful Mr Blair would rush to bring the shutters down.
Q: Could that be done legally?
A: Not as things stand. As Mr Hain has said, the legislation makes no provision for an executive existing in "shadow" form, and he and No 10 are adamant parliament wouldn't hear tell of going back to it. However, Mr Dodds counters that Parliament can do what it wants. And the Conservatives, while keen to see the deadline met come Monday, would be willing to facilitate an emergency bill extending the life of the Assembly.
Q: Is that where we're headed then?
A: You couldn't be at all sure of that. The signs are that No 10 is digging in behind Mr Hain. Certainly there is deep resistance in Whitehall to the notion of disappointing the voting public, whose overwhelming support for the St Andrews Agreement was evidenced in the government exit poll leaked last week, in favour of what they would see as a face-saving exercise demanded by a few DUP recalcitrants.
More politely but forcefully the British will argue that the DUP would be taking itself from a position of strength to one of weakness - losing out on key issues such as water rates and education reform, and possibly forfeiting changes won to the Belfast Agreement, while eventually being forced back and asking everybody else to rekindle their interest in devolution.
Mr Dodds dismisses all such talk as nonsense, citing Peter Mandelson's recent testimony that "process" is always all for Mr Blair, and asserting that everything previously agreed is, as they say, "banked". The equally hardball message from the British government, however, is that this would be a profound miscalculation. With the Taoiseach on the verge of a general election, key insiders insist the politics of the situation simply does not favour delay. And anyway, they add, nothing would be changed as a result if one were granted.
Q: So how will Paisley call it?
A: The DUP leader must believe he has correctly divined the desire of his own people for a settlement. He will need no reminding that "events", possibly planned by dissident republicans, could yet derail the process and that delay could play into their hands.
Crucially, he successfully made support for the PSNI a condition for all parties entering government, thus bringing republicans to finally accept the legitimacy of the Northern Ireland state. He does not want to let that prize slip from his grasp, and will be aware of the risk of over-playing his hand one last time.
He will also have a keen sense that it was in his judgment that the unionist people reposed their trust. And in that sense at least, by facing down the doubters in order finally to say Yes, the former Dr No would be running true to form.
Some DUP MPs have said they wouldn't bet this journalist's money on him delivering on time. But at this writing, Paisley still looks worth a gamble.