ial blades. It had been, originally, a
drawing-room, the cornice was elaborate, and painted on the ceiling
were flying cupids and azure and cornucopias of spilling flowers.

At moments of rest, his chest laboring and arms limp at his sides,
Charles Abbott would stare up at the remote pastoral of love and Venus
and roses. Then the clamor, the wicked scrape of steel, the sharp
breaths, the sibilant cries that accompanied the lunges, would appear
wholly incomprehensible to him, a business in a mad-house; he'd want
to tear the plastron, with its scarlet heart sewn high on the left,
from his chest, and fling it, with his gauntlet and mask, across the
floor; he'd want to break all the foils, and banish Galope Hormiguero
to live among the wild beasts he resembled. He was deep in such a mood
when de Vaca's considerate tones roused him. "Positively," he said,
"you are like one of the heroes who held Mexico on the point of his
sword or who swept the coast of Peru of its gold. And you are idle,
for you see no one who can hold the mat with you."

"In reality," Charles replied, "I fence very awkwardly. But you have
often seen me, I haven't any need to tell you that."

"That can never be established without experience," the Spaniard
asserted; "I should have to feel your wrist against mine. If you will
be patient, if you will wait for me, I'll risk a public humiliation."

Charles Abbott said evenly: "I'd be very glad to fence with you, of
course."

When de Vaca, flawlessly appointed, returned, Charles rose steadily,
and strapped on his mask, tightened the leather of the plastron. A
murmur of subdued amusement followed their walking out together onto
an unoccupied strip--de Vaca was a celebrated swordsman. Charles
saluted acceptably, but the wielding of the other's gesture of
courtesy filled him with admiration. The foils struck together, there
was a conventional pass and parry, and from that moment Charles Abbott
lost control of his steel. At a touch from de Vaca, scarcely
perceptible, his foil rose or fell, swept to one side or the other; a
lunge would end in the button describing a whole arc, and pointing
either to the matting or the winged and cherubic cupids. The laughter
from the chairs grew louder, more unguarded, and then settled into a
constant stream of applause and merriment.

Disengaged, he said in tones which he tried in vain to make steady,
"You have a beautiful hand."

De Vaca, his eyes shining blackly through wi