he exclaimed,
earnestly modulating his voice to sincerest beseechment; "I really did
not mean to be impudent, nor--"

Her vivacity cleared with a merry laugh.

"No apologies, I command you," she interposed. "We will have them after
I have taught you a fencing lesson."

From a shelf she drew down a pair of foils and presenting the hilts,
bade him take his choice.

"There isn't any difference between them that I know of," she said, and
then added archly; "but you will feel better at last, when all is over
and the sting of defeat tingles through you, if you are conscious of
having used every sensible precaution."

He looked straight into her eyes, trying to catch what was in her mind,
but there was a bewildering glamour playing across those gray,
opal-tinted wells of mystery, from which he could draw only a
mischievous smile-glint, direct, daring, irresistible.

"Well," he said, taking one of the foils, "what do you really mean? Is
it a challenge without room for honorable retreat?"

"The time for parley is past," she replied, "follow me to the
battle-ground."

She led the way to a pleasant little court in the rear of the cabin's
yard, a space between two wings and a vine-covered trellis, beyond
which lay a well kept vineyard and vegetable garden. Here she turned
about and faced him, poising her foil with a fine grace.

"Are you ready?" she inquired.

He tried again to force a way into the depths of her eyes with his; but
he might as well have attacked the sun; so he stood in a confusion of
not very well defined feelings, undecided, hesitating, half expecting
that there would be some laughable turn to end the affair.

"Are you afraid, Monsieur Beverley?" she demanded after a short waiting
in silence.

He laughed now and whipped the air with his foil.

"You certainly are not in earnest?" he said interrogatively. "Do you
really mean that you want to fence with me?"

"If you think because I'm only a girl you can easily beat me, try it,"
she tauntingly replied making a level thrust toward his breast.

Quick as a flash he parried, and then a merry clinking and twinkling of
steel blades kept time to their swift movements. Instantly, by the sure
sense which is half sight, half feeling--the sense that guides the
expert fencer's hand and wrist--Beverley knew that he had probably more
than his match, and in ten seconds his attack was met by a time thrust
in opposition which touched him sharply.

Alice sprang far