Pressure was building on the Ulster Unionist Party last night to "engage" in direct discussions with Sinn Fein, with the Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, saying a face-to-face encounter between the two sides would be a useful development.
Dr Mowlam's explicit encouragement followed the British Prime Minister's barely coded message to Mr David Trimble on Tuesday night that "engagement and compromise" were essential if the talks process were to deliver a sustainable political settlement.
However, as UUP MPs met at Westminster to review this week's developments at Lancaster House, the party seemed set to resist, with Mr Trimble expected shortly to spell out the reasons, in the words of one colleague, "such a meeting is not going to take place".
The Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, has significantly stepped up the public and private pressure for direct talks with Mr Trimble, rounding off yesterday's press conference with the assertion: "It is my conviction that the UUP will meet with Sinn Fein. What I don't know is when."
But earlier in the day Mr Trimble angrily dismissed journalists' questions on the subject, saying that whom he met was a matter for him, and insisting: "We have not had any sign of a serious engagement by Sinn Fein on the real issues. They're not living in the real world."
The Ulster Unionists, he said, were talking about an assembly and the better government of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. "Sinn Fein are talking about regional councils in a united Ireland. I'm not talking about a united Ireland."
Speculation about a shift in the UUP position swept the press centre at Lancaster House yesterday morning following bullish suggestions from the Progressive Unionist spokesman, Mr David Ervine, that it was time for unionists to "call Sinn Fein's bluff" and confront the party in negotiation "eyeball to eyeball", coupled with conflicting accounts of Tuesday afternoon's session during which Mr Reg Empey, a senior UUP negotiator, did address Sinn Fein "through the chair".
SDLP sources lavished praise on Mr Empey for a reportedly eloquent address in which he charged Sinn Fein and the IRA with treating unionists as if they didn't exist; citing their determination to end the Union, and the murder of colleagues like Mr Edgar Graham and the Rev Robert Bradford as reasons unionists could not trust them, while suggesting that unionists did have understanding of republican feelings over issues like the hunger-strike.
Following what one SDLP source described as "a non-response" from Mr Martin McGuinness, it is understood that Mr Seamus Mallon, the SDLP deputy leader, also made a strong attack on Sinn Fein's interpretation of the recent Propositions for Heads of Agreement paper, and the party's failure to engage properly with the "internal" Strand One issues.
Mr Adams tersely dismissed that suggestion yesterday, saying "Sinn Fein is engaged" in Strand One. "I don't know what Seamus is talking about." And he said he had begun his address to yesterday morning's session by acknowledging "what we felt was a serious attempt by Reg Empey to set out his party's position in a more positive way than before".
The talks return to Stormont next week in Strand One formation, with the parties then scheduled to travel to Dublin a week later to present their detailed response to Tuesday's British-Irish discussion paper on possible North-South structures.
And after three days of what Mr Mallon described as "a quite remarkable period of intensity and strain" the two governments wrapped up the Lancaster House session on a determinedly optimistic note. Dr Mowlam said she had had messages from people in Northern Ireland alarmed at the images emerging from the talks on Tuesday, and insisted these were "in contrast" to the atmosphere inside the conference room. Ms Liz O'Donnell, Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, believed they had completed "a good couple of days work". And she maintained: "The parties have been engaging in a positive way. Every time we meet, trust grows."
The Minister praised Mr Empey's "very powerful and enlightened contribution" and what she described as a subsequent "clear and determined attempt by Sinn Fein to reach out" to the unionists. And she appealed to those who were minded to try to destroy the process to hold back and let the parties show that politics worked.
Dr Mowlam repeated her argument that the two governments could not continue to negotiate as proxies for the parties, and Ms O'Donnell echoed her view that the parties themselves "must have ownership" of any settlement likely to prove durable.
Mr Mallon said he believed agreement was "more possible because of the past three days". The search for agreement was being conducted against a background of "vile, evil sectarian violence" but he insisted: "I believe it will happen."