“It is a goodly ring,” he observed. “The setting is old and curious, and the stone, though it has a slight flaw in it, as you have been doubtless told before now, is worth more than any poor possessions I have about my person. Wherefore I would rather we contended for love.”
Halfman shook his head. He was a thought dashed by Evander’s discovery of the blemish in the stone, and he carried off his discomfiture by bravado.
“Nay, nay,” he answered; “there is my stake. Set what you please against it, were it no more than a silver groat. I do not ask to be paid well for my lesson.”
Evander said nothing, but drew his purse from his pocket and laid it on the table. Through the meshes Halfman could see the gleam of a few pieces of gold, and the gleam cheered him, as it always did. He was ever greedy of gold, and thought the death of Crassus not unkingly.
“Choose your blade,” he said. Evander, with a quick glance at the two weapons, selected the one nearest to him, flung his hat onto a chair, stripped off his doublet, and quietly waited for his adversary. Halfman did not keep him long. He flung his hat and doublet on the floor and advanced.
“Are you ready?” he asked. Evander saluted in silence, and in another moment the antagonists engaged and the mock duello began. Halfman expected that it would be short, but it proved much shorter than he expected. He was far too good a swordsman not to know when he had encountered a better. The thing had not happened to him very often; it happened very flagrantly now. In less than five minutes Evander had placed the muffled button of his blade three times on Halfman’s person—once upon either breast, and the third time fair on the forehead, just between the eyes. The last blow was so surely delivered that had it been given with greater force it might have knocked the receiver senseless. As it was, however, it was given with such deliberate delicacy that, though Halfman’s head hummed for the moment and his eyes saw stars, he rallied quickly enough to stare at Evander where he stood with lowered point and to tender him a salutation of honest admiration.
“Great Jove of glory!” he gasped; “who was it that ran liquid steel into your spare body?”
Evander smiled at the new change in his chameleon companion.
“I learned a little fencing when I was in Paris,” he admitted. “I fear I was over-inclined for the pastime.”