There was a certain mood for celebration in the House of Commons yesterday. But if Tony Blair sensed the moment of his vindication close at hand he wasn't showing it.
For if conviction and resolution have been characteristics of his Iraqi campaign thus far, it might be said that modesty has been a third.
This is not a charge frequently levelled at the British Prime Minister. Indeed much of his pre-war difficulty was rooted in British public scepticism about a sometimes over-mighty government notorious for overstating its achievements and its enthusiasm for presentation over substance.
Yet Mr Blair's war has been strikingly free of showmanship. Members of Parliament certainly cannot complain he has discarded the Commons in favour of the BBC radio's Today programme. Against widespread expectation he would cut-and-run, Mr Blair sought Commons' approval prior to the commitment of British forces. He broke with convention and set a powerful precedent for the future rules of engagement.
Since then, he has been ever-present in the battle for public hearts and minds, arguably to an absurd extent in subjecting himself to television studio debates with critical and disrespectful audiences.
Otherwise, Mr Blair has conspicuously not played the war hero. At key moments, arriving back at Number 10, Mr Blair has entered by the back door and denied the waiting press their photo opportunity. He has not been following the coffins of the fallen to RAF Brize Norton, on the proper grounds that if he could not attend all such ceremonies, it is better he attend none.
There has been none of the public emoting and there has been no real jingoism either. True to patriotic form the papers have been doing their bit for "our boys" (and girls) out there. There has been no attempt to seize the Churchillian mantle, no harking back to the glories of World War II or the Falklands campaign.
Mr Blair has instead chosen to wrap himself in the flag of freedom for the Iraqi people. So yesterday, in the Commons Mr Blair was resisting triumphalism.
Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith congratulated him and asked from whom would the allies accept a "final declaration of surrender"? Mr Blair conceded it was "extremely difficult to know what's left of the governing higher ranks" of the regime.
However, as the Tory leader led the Commons ahead of itself on the detail of post-conflict reconstruction, the Prime Minister cautioned: "This conflict is not over yet." With much attention turning to the original justification for the war, Mr Blair again said he had "no doubt" that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) "do exist".
Despite "a six-month exercise in concealment," Mr Blair declared himself confident that Iraqi scientists would help the allies establish the facts. And he agreed it would be "a good idea to have some sort of independent verification" of any such weapons found.
The very reference to WMD at this point underlined the reason for Mr Blair's continuing caution. Joyful Iraqis danced on Saddam's fallen statue in the centre of Baghdad yesterday. But Mr Blair bears the responsibility for the forces out there amid the continuing question as to the whereabouts of Saddam himself and the possibility of a last stand still to be made, maybe in Tikrit.
Yet for all the modesty and proper caution, Mr Blair is only human. And he allowed himself to laugh - though he resisted the invitation to comment - when one Labour backbencher answered for him when Mr Duncan Smith asked from whom the surrender might come: "Galloway."
Just seven days ago Mr Galloway, the Labour maverick, dubbed MP for Baghdad Central, likened British and American forces to "wolves" unaware they were entering an "Iraqi quagmire" which would mark "a long war of liberation... against the occupying forces."
From high in the press gallery it wasn't possible to see whether Clare Short or Robin Cook were present to witness the mocking laughter which rose from the Labour benches to greet Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy. The moment of Mr Galloway's liberation from the Labour Party may be close at hand.
For others who remain the mocking laughter might be an ever greater cross to bear for years to come.