"You ought to be ashamed, Alice," said the dame in scolding
approval of what she had done; "girls do not fence with
gentlemen."
"This girl does," said Alice.
"And with extreme disaster to this gentleman," said Beverley,
laughing in a tone of discomfiture and resignation.
"Ah, Mo'sieu', there's nothing but disaster where she goes,"
complained Madame Roussillon, "she is a destroyer of everything.
Only yesterday she dropped my pink bowl and broke it, the only one
I had."
"And just to think," said Beverley, "what would have been the
condition of my heart had we been using rapiers instead of
leather-buttoned foils! She would have spitted it through the very
center."
"Like enough," replied the dame indifferently. "She wouldn't
wince, either,--not she."
Alice ran into the house with the foils and Beverley followed.
"We must try it over again some day soon," he said; "I find that
you can show me a few points. Where did you learn to fence so
admirably? Is Monsieur Roussillon your master?"
"Indeed he isn't," she quickly replied, "he is but a bungling
swordsman. My master--but I am not at liberty to tell you who has
taught me the little I know."
"Well, whoever he is I should be glad to have lessons from him."
"But you'll never get them."
"Why?"
"Because."
"A woman's ultimatum."
"As good as a man's!" she bridled prettily; "and sometimes better--
at the foils for example.
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