y of love and pain. The prince
declined to listen to apologies. 'He meant to teach me that this was not
a laughing matter.' Major Edelsheim had misunderstood Bandelmeyer; no
offer of an apology had been made. A momentary human sensation of an
unworthy sort beset me when I saw them standing together again, and
contrasted the collectedness and good-humour of my adversary's
representative with the vexatious and unnecessary naggling of mine, the
sight of whose yard-long pipe scandalized me.

At last the practical word was given. The prince did not reply to my
salute. He was smoking, and kept his cigar in one corner of his mouth, as
if he were a master fencer bidding his pupil to come on. He assumed that
he had to do with a bourgeois Briton unused to arms, such as we are
generally held to be on the Continent. After feeling my wrist for a while
he shook the cigar out of his teeth.

The 'cliquetis' of the crossed steel must be very distant in memory, and
yourself in a most dilettante frame of mind, for you to be accessible to
the music of that thin skeleton's clank. Nevertheless, it is better and
finer even at the time of action, than the abominable hollow ogre's eye
of the pistol-muzzle. We exchanged passes, the prince chiefly attacking.
Of all the things to strike my thoughts, can you credit me that the
vividest was the picture of the old woman Temple and I had seen in our
boyhood on the night of the fire dropping askew, like forks of brown
flame, from the burning house in London city; I must have smiled. The
prince cried out in French: 'Laugh, sir; you shall have it!' He had
nothing but his impetuosity for an assurance of his promise, and was
never able to force me back beyond a foot. I touched him on the arm and
the shoulder, and finally pierced his arm above the elbow. I could have
done nearly what I liked with him; his skill was that of a common
regimental sabreur.

'Ludere qui nescit campestribus abstinet armis!' Bandelmeyer sang out.

'You observed?' said Major Edelsheim, and received another disconcerting
discharge of a Latin line. The prince frowned and made use of some
military slang. Was his honour now satisfied? Not a whit. He certainly
could not have kept his sword-point straight, and yet he clamoured to
fight on, stamped, and summoned me to assault him, proposed to fight me
with his left hand after his right had failed; in short, he was beside
himself, an example of the predicament of a man who has given all