And so the two faced each other, smiling; Nick calm, confident, reposeful; the Frenchman alert, eager, and thrilling with pleasure. It is no child’s play to fence with needle-pointed rapiers without delivering or receiving a serious wound, and only the most expert of fencers would dare to undertake it.
Like all fencers, when they begin a combat, these two felt of one another’s strength of wrist, celerity of action, keenness of guard and thrust, and foot movement; and after a few parries the Frenchman leaped back out of reach for a moment, while he lowered the point of his weapon and exclaimed:
“La, la! But it is magnificent. Grande! Glorious! Monsieur is a foeman worthy to meet the best. He has the strength of wrist—ah! And the foot movement—yes! But I will show him that he has met one who is greater than he. En garde, monsieur!”
Both had done the “feeling,” and they now went at the combat seriously; and Nick, feeling that the time was, perhaps, short, if he was to accomplish all he wished to do that night, determined to win out as soon as possible.
He therefore attacked the Frenchman like a cyclone. He seemed to cover himself with steel; his weapon glinted like a thousand gems through the air, darting in and out like flashes of lightning, forming a perfect shield around his head and breast, and, at the same time, dancing through the guard of his opponent with every thrust he made. And yet, for a long time he got no nearer to the master than that. The Frenchman was really superb in the practise of his art. He was a master of it; but he was not a master of the man who stood in front of him like a granite pillar, suddenly infused with the animation of a spirit and the strength of a Hercules.
After a few moments of this furious attack, Nick saw that his opponent was giving ground. He realized that the pace was telling upon him, and that his own superior strength was overpowering his adversary.
The Frenchman was rapidly tiring. Once he leaped back to avoid a thrust, and would have called for a rest had not Nick laughingly guyed him by asking calmly if he were tired.
Lafetre was tired; but he would sooner have died then and there than to have confessed it, and he returned to the game with redoubled energy. But although the will was there, the steam to keep it going was not. His wrist was tired. The strength of Nick’s arm had strained it more than he would have believed possible before “monsieur” entered the room so strangely.