Whisper it gently: Bertie Ahern and David Trimble are beginning to think they might, just might, be able to do business. That was the unmistakable message from Thursday's meeting between the Taoiseach and the Ulster Unionist leader in London, their first since Mr Ahern came to power.
They were at pains not to overestimate the possibilities, or to play down the difficulties. Rightly so. Things are, as they say, at a highly tentative stage. The devil (and an awful lot of it) remains in the detail. But Mr Trimble believes they are finally getting to "the red meat" of the issues central to a political settlement on the North. And when asked if "a serious engagement" was under way, a member of the Irish delegation told The Irish Times: "That would be an understatement."
The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Liz O'Donnell, struck a jarring note the day before the meeting, telling Mr Trimble not to use the Taoiseach as "a court of appeal" against the Stormont talks process. There is a natural anxiety, not least out of concern for the other parties, about Mr Trimble's preference for dealing at prime ministerial level, although, intriguingly, one Irish source suggested this might also be because the UUP leader detects something of "a political vacuum" at the Northern Ireland Office.
Understandable, too, might have been a grain of irritation at Mr Trimble's insistence that he would only meet the Taoiseach in London or Europe. But from the Ahern camp itself not a word about what some would see as a characteristic lack of grace.
Clearly the diversion to the Sheraton Hotel had been wholly worthwhile, the quail and monkfish whetting their appetite for the main course, a mixed grill of constitutional reform, power-sharing, cross-Border bodies and East-West relationships.
Like James Molyneaux before him, Mr Trimble is much given to talking about "the totality of relationships" within these islands. The operative assumption in Dublin (almost certainly correct) was that this was a Molyneauxsque formula for killing off the Anglo-Irish relationship. But times and circumstances change.
Moreover, there patently are areas - Mr Trimble this week cited transportation and pollution in the Irish Sea - which are not purely North-South or London-Dublin concerns. That will be still more the case with the emergence of a Scottish parliament and a Welsh assembly and, possibly, new structures for the English regions as well.
So the pragmatic Mr Ahern has indicated he is "open-minded" about Mr Trimble's plans for a British-Irish-type body, in which representatives from London, Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff might come together to consider matters of mutual interest and concern.
The early signals are that Dublin would certainly be prepared to consider a weightier structure than the Anglo-Irish Inter-parliamentary Body, possibly serviced by a small, but permanent, secretariat.
And there are other signs of greater openness to unionist concerns. Again Dublin, like the SDLP, has been suspicious of Mr Trimble's desire to merge Strands 2 and 3 of the talks process.
The obvious determination is to resist unionist attempts to row back the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. Against that, the fact is that, as envisaged in 1985, devolution to the North would change the picture. Hence an apparent willingness now to consider "ways of associating local representatives" with the work of the Intergovernmental Conference.
On the key issue for unionists, Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution, Mr Ahern on Thursday reiterated the Government's commitment to remove the territorial claim in the context of an overall settlement.
It will be easier said than done. For to approach the detail surrounding this issue is to understand the minefield the Government must negotiate as it seeks to engage the unionists while keeping faith with Northern nationalists and with Sinn Fein.
On Thursday the Taoiseach maintained the holding position set out in paragraph 21 of the Joint Framework Document, that the Irish Government would support changes to the Constitution to implement the commitments of the Downing Street Declaration; that these would "fully reflect the principle of consent" in the North; and be "demonstrably" such that no territorial claim of right to jurisdiction over Northern Ireland is asserted contrary to the will of a majority of the people there, while maintaining the right of everyone born in either jurisdiction to be part, as of right, of the Irish nation.
Not enough for Mr Trimble. He claims that offer is negated by the previous Supreme Court ruling, and says constitutional change must be "judge-proof". In pursuit of the `Corfu test', set by John Major at an EU summit in June 1994, he seeks a formulation which recognises the legitimacy of Northern Ireland's place within the United Kingdom.
And, in Mr Trimble's mind almost certainly, that presumes, not merely the abandonment of the de jure claim to jurisdiction, but also a redefinition of "the national territory".
Irish sources appear divided as to whether a redefinition of the national territory is possible, or whether, in the changed circumstances of a deal, it might be necessary to have any such definition at all.
There is acute awareness that the very discussion of these issues, in these terms, spells deep discomfort for Sinn Fein. But then it is acknowledged that such endgames were foretold in the Framework Documents, and that even the structuring of the Stormont talks process points to certain assumptions about the outlines of any likely agreement.
That said, the discomfort is hardly one-way. If Dublin is being obliged to engage with the realities of the unionist agenda, and the practicalities of its own declared positions, the Taoiseach on Thursday was equally firm in his assertion of the parameters of any deal capable of commanding nationalist consent.
For Dublin, "balanced constitutional change" will require the amendment of the 1920 Government of Ireland Act and the 1973 Constitution Act to incorporate the Framework Document formula, allowing for the possibility of Irish unity by the freely-given consent of the peoples North and South.
Whatever arrangements Dublin might agree for East-West relations, the North-South dimension will remain paramount. And Mr Trimble can expect no freewill offerings. The trade-off for Dublin still requires a power-sharing administration in the North, and cross-Border bodies with executive powers, invested with clear institutional identity and purpose, and a dynamic remit enabling progressive extension of their functions by agreement.
The unionists are greatly exercised by the Framework proposal that London and Dublin would have an override power in the event of failure of the North-South bodies to discharge their mandate.
But, as one Irish strategist put it this week, the whole point is that any deal built to last must be negotiated in good faith and intent. Should the unionists, safely ensconced in their devolved assembly, be tempted to try and thwart the North-South operation, the inevitable nationalist response would bring the internal dimension crashing to the ground.
And, in any event, London and Dublin would almost certainly be agreed that the failure of any new settlement would automatically lead to the restoration of the status quo ante.
All of these factors can be advanced and received in a way that seems challenging and threatening, or alternatively as a reflection of the realities of the dispersal of power and influence as between the two governments and the two communities in the North.
The realities certainly haven't changed. The issues rehearsed here were central to the failed 1992 talks, as they attended the long tortuous "talks about talks" process James Molyneaux and the Rev Ian Paisley initiated with the British government 10 years ago. But for a variety of reasons, those processes themselves were never real.
Is this one any different? The sceptic suffers no lack of supporting evidence for the view that this might all be a power play which will resolve itself into a game of blame-allocation before the inevitable fall-out and recrimination.
But for the first time, the leader of a Fianna Fail-led Government and the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party suggest that the realities, and their consequences, are to be faced head-on. And the hope will be that this time each side will be able to calculate potential gain rather than loss.