"Engaged? Ah, yes, with the play-actor!" sneered his opponent, whose lip was already swelling.
"No," retorted Laurent, throwing back his head and speaking very clearly and deliberately, "with my friend, M. le Vicomte de la Rocheterie, Chevalier de St. Louis—he who held the Moulin Brûlé, L'Oiseleur!"
"Bravo!" cried several voices to this.
"And I will either give you satisfaction here and now or not at all," resumed Laurent. "You need have no fear on the score of the medical attendance; I have an excellent surgeon with me"—he slightly indicated M. Perrelet—"and though he, too, happens to be a friend of M. de la Rocheterie's, I am sure he will do his best for you."
There were not only cheers, but laughter now. The general opinion also was with Laurent on the desirability of settling the affair on the spot, and his foe was too angry to wish to postpone shedding his blood. So the company pushed back the tables with alacrity, and Laurent stripped off his coat and gave it to one of his friends. At that point M. Perrelet came and caught him by the arm.
"Laurent," he said in a low voice, agitated and yet pleasurably agitated, and unaware that he had used his Christian name, "Laurent, my dear boy, are you au fait at this sort of thing?"
"Do you mean," enquired Laurent coolly, as he rolled up his shirt sleeve, "have I ever fought before? No, I have not. But between foils and singlestick, I know quite enough to settle M. Guitton cadet."
M. Perrelet could not restrain a chuckle of appreciation. But he whispered, "Do, pray, be careful!"
"Of him? Oh, yes . . . up to a point."
How all too short are moments of ecstasy! This one only lasted, from the—"On guard!" and the loosing of the crossed blades, fifty-six seconds exactly—seconds in which the younger gentleman at the end of one of those blades was blissfully, unimaginably happy. He knew that he was no brilliant swordsman, but he knew, too, that he had a steady hand, a quick eye, and a very good balance . . . and he was fighting for Aymar. Yes, it was a pity that this man, ten years his senior and with more experience, no doubt, behind him, was so angry, because otherwise he might have prolonged the bout instead of exposing himself in that crazy fashion.