, he was conscious of being excelled before the crowd
of spectators by the agility and sure young strength of the American.
Piqued and disgusted at the thought, the habitual half-mocking
good-humor of his manner gave way to sullen, repressed irritation.
Knowing his world so well, he was sure of the interest and curiosity
Calvert's performance would arouse, and longed to convert his little
triumph into a defeat. Being accustomed to doing everything he undertook
a little better, a little more gracefully, with a little more eclat than
anyone else, he suddenly began to hate this young man who had beaten him
at his own game and for whom he had felt an aversion from the first
moment of seeing him.

He tried to bethink himself of some plan of lowering his enemy's colors.
In his younger days he had been a notable athlete, excelling in vaulting
and jumping, and suddenly an idea occurred to him which he thought would
result in mortification to Mr. Calvert and success to himself. So great
was the interest in the skating of the two gentlemen that the greater
part of the crowd had retired beyond a little ledge of roughened ice and
snow which cut the improvised arena into two nearly equal parts from
where they could conveniently see Monsieur de St. Aulaire and Mr.
Calvert as they skated about. This rift in the smoothness of the ice was
some fifteen feet wide and extended far out from the shore, so that
those wishing to pass beyond it had to skate out around its end and so
get to the other side. Monsieur de St. Aulaire came up close to it, and,
as he did so, he suddenly called out to Calvert:

"Let us try the other side, Monsieur, and, as it is too far to go
around this, suppose we jump it," and he laughed as he noted Calvert's
look of surprise at his proposition.

"As you wish, Monsieur," assented Calvert, though somewhat dubiously, as
he noted the breadth of the roughened surface, and mentally calculated
that to miss the clear jump by a hair's-breadth would ensure a hard,
perhaps dangerous, fall. 'Twas no easy jump under ordinary
circumstances; weighted down by skates the difficulty would be vastly
increased.

"Tis too wide for a standing jump, Monsieur," said St. Aulaire, looking
alternately at Calvert and the rift of broken, jagged ice, and laughing
recklessly. "We will have to run for it!" And without more words the two
gentlemen skated rapidly back for twenty yards and then came forward
with tremendous velocity, _pari passu_