After a day in which Macmillan chief John Sargent gave Amazon another series of masterful lessons in the art of publicity, corporate responsibility, business leadership, and overall class (see the earlier report from MobyLives), the behemoth from Seattle finally really did capitulate, although once again it was on a Friday night when it was likely to get the least attention: At about 6:15 pm ET tonight (Friday, February 5th), Macmillan’s buy buttons reappeared.

Except, it wasn’t — again — anywhere near a complete capitulation. As a brief report from the Wall Street Journal notes, Amazon has gone about things in its own pissy way: “only print editions of Macmillan books such as ‘Wolf Hall’ by Hilary Mantel were for sale by Amazon, not e-book editions of those books for the .”

It’s been a full week since Amazon disappeared all of Macmillan’s buttons. A New York Times report says “So what did Amazon hold out for? The company would not comment, but it is likely that Amazon demanded that no other e-book vendors, such as Apple, get preferential access to new titles, or any kind of pricing advantages. Amazon may also have negotiated terms into its agreement with the publisher that would allow users of Kindles or Kindle software to lend e-books to each other.”

But don’t let the assumption of the Times report, nor of other headlines proclaiming “the buttons are back,” fool you. As the WSJ report makes clear, they’re not back completely, meaning Amazon is still punishing Macmillan, and has yet to give in on ebook prices. Although it does seem that they’re processing the fact that they’ve lost in the industry, and in the court of public opinion … it just seems to take them a long time to process such information.