“Why, it is magic!” said Bathsheba, amazed.
“Oh no—dexterity. I merely gave point to your bosom where the caterpillar was, and instead of running you through checked the extension a thousandth of an inch short of your surface.”
“But how could you chop off a curl of my hair with a sword that has no edge?”
“No edge! This sword will shave like a razor. Look here.”
He touched the palm of his hand with the blade, and then, lifting it, showed her a thin shaving of scarf-skin dangling therefrom.
“But you said before beginning that it was blunt and couldn’t cut me!”
“That was to get you to stand still, and so make sure of your safety. The risk of injuring you through your moving was too great not to force me to tell you a fib to escape it.”
She shuddered. “I have been within an inch of my life, and didn’t know it!”
“More precisely speaking, you have been within half an inch of being pared alive two hundred and ninety-five times.”
“Cruel, cruel, ’tis of you!”