"
"Oh, it's Monsieur de Ronville, perhaps, that you will offer up as
a victim to my skill and address," he slyly returned; for he was
suspecting that a love affair in some stage of progress lay
between her and Rene.
She blushed violently, but quickly overcoming a combined rush of
surprise and anger, added with an emphasis as charming as it was
unexpected.
"I myself am, perhaps, swordsman enough to satisfy the impudence
and vanity of Monsieur Beverley, Lieutenant in the American army."
"Pardon me, Mademoiselle; forgive me, I beg of you," he exclaimed,
earnestly modulating his voice to sincerest beseechment; "I really
did not mean to be impudent, nor--"
Her vivacity cleared with a merry laugh.
"No apologies, I command you," she interposed. "We will have them
after I have taught you a fencing lesson."
From a shelf she drew down a pair of foils and presenting the
hilts, bade him take his choice.
"There isn't any difference between them that I know of," she
said, and then added archly; "but you will feel better at last,
when all is over and the sting of defeat tingles through you, if
you are conscious of having used every sensible precaution."
He looked straight into her eyes, trying to catch what was in her
mind, but there was a bewildering glamour playing across those
gray, opal-tinted wells of mystery, from which he could draw only
a mischievous smile-glint, direct, daring, irresistible.
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