its work, and his hand obeyed it as readily
as the bolt slips in a well-oiled groove. As the thing stood, the lithe
agility and unmatched dash of young Rupert but just missed being too
much for him. He was in deadly peril when the girl Rosa ran down to
bring him aid. His practised skill was able to maintain his defence. He
sought to do no more, but endured Rupert's fiery attack and wily feints
in an almost motionless stillness. Almost, I say; for the slight turns
of wrist that seem nothing are everything, and served here to keep his
skin whole and his life in him.

There was an instant--Rudolf saw it in his eyes and dwelt on it when he
lightly painted the scene for me--when there dawned on Rupert of Hentzau
the knowledge that he could not break down his enemy's guard. Surprise,
chagrin, amusement, or something like it, seemed blended in his look.
He could not make out how he was caught and checked in every effort,
meeting, it seemed, a barrier of iron impregnable in rest. His quick
brain grasped the lesson in an instant. If his skill were not the
greater, the victory would not be his, for his endurance was the less.
He was younger, and his frame was not so closely knit; pleasure had
taken its tithe from him; perhaps a good cause goes for something. Even
while he almost pressed Rudolf against the panel of the door, he seemed
to know that his measure of success was full. But what the hand could
not compass the head might contrive. In quickly conceived strategy he
began to give pause in his attack, nay, he retreated a step or two. No
scruples hampered his devices, no code of honor limited the means he
would employ. Backing before his opponent, he seemed to Rudolf to be
faint-hearted; he was baffled, but seemed despairing; he was weary, but
played a more complete fatigue. Rudolf advanced, pressing and attacking,
only to meet a defence as perfect as his own. They were in the middle of
the room now, close by the table. Rupert, as though he had eyes in
the back of his head, skirted round, avoiding it by a narrow inch. His
breathing was quick and distressed, gasp tumbling over gasp, but still
his eye was alert and his hand unerring. He had but a few moments'
more effort left in him: it was enough if he could reach his goal and
perpetrate the trick on which his mind, fertile in every base device,
was set. For it was towards the mantelpiece that his retreat, seeming
forced, in truth so deliberate, led him. There was the letter, t