"By San Martin, you have a wonderful arm!" the professor said.
"We play hard at school in England. All our games demand strength and activity, and it is not wonderful that our muscles are vastly harder and stronger than those of your gentlemen, who would consider it infra dig., when boys, to engage in any sport that would make them warm."
The professor felt the muscles of his right arm. "Well, señor, if you fence, as your muscles would seem to show, you need only a little teaching to be one of the best swordsmen in Spain. Then, too, your height and age give you great advantage. Well, señor, take the foil and let me see what you know."
"Very good," he said, after a bout of two or three minutes. "You have been well taught. I can see that you are out of practice, and your returns are not as quick as might be. However, if you work as you say, that will soon be put right."
After the lesson, Arthur found his wrist recovering its suppleness, but he was glad to stop before the second bout was finished.
"You will do, señor," the professor said, when he acknowledged that he had had enough. "I suppose you are working in this way for a purpose, and I can tell you that I should be sorry to be your opponent."
Arthur's wrist and arm were stiff the next morning, and he was not sorry to follow his teacher's advice and content himself with an hour and a half at each lesson.
The first week Leon in vain endeavoured to find out from him where he had spent his time. "I used almost always to find you in," he said, "but now, whether it is the morning or the afternoon, I find you away. Of an evening you have often dropped in, but later than usual."
"I am rather busy just now, Leon, and of course go in every morning from ten to one to Colonel Wylde's office, and generally for an hour in the afternoon; but things are so quiet, both up in the north and the east, that he does not consider it necessary for me to start again at present."
"Well, the girls are always saying, 'What has come over Captain Hallett the last few days?'"