big easy-chair, with him in it, towards the
window, and Veronica put on her leathern jacket and glove, and stood
holding her mask in her hand, as she bent over the foils looking for her
favourite one. She found it, and came forward, carrying both mask and
foil, while Taquisara got ready. Gianluca looked at her and smiled.
There was something defiant and warlike about the small, well-poised
head, the aquiline features, and the bright eyes. With one foot a little
in advance she stood up, straight and daring, in the middle of the room,
waiting for her adversary. The grey light of the rainy afternoon gleamed
coldly along the steel.

Taquisara took the one of the two masks which fitted him the better, and
picked out a foil. He did not think of putting on a jacket to fence with
a woman.

"No jacket?" asked Veronica, with a short laugh, as she slipped her mask
over her head.

He laughed, too, but said nothing, considering it as a matter of course,
and stepping into position he stood before Veronica with lowered foil.
She raised hers, saluted him, and then Gianluca, as though they were to
fence a bout for a prize. Taquisara did the same.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, in surprise, as both were about to fall into guard.
"Are you left-handed?"

"Yes--did you never notice it?" She laughed again, as her foil played
upon his for a second. "Now then!" she cried.

Taquisara was not an exceptionally good fencer, and had spent very
little time in the study of the art. He was bold, quick, and somewhat
reckless, and in two or three slight affairs in which, like most men of
his society in the south, he had been unavoidably engaged, he had
wounded his adversaries rather by surprise and indifference to his own
safety, than by any superior skill. He had expected that Veronica would
make a few conventional passes and parries, and grow tired of the sport
in a few minutes. To his astonishment, he saw in a moment that she could
really fence fairly well, while the fact of being left-handed gave her a
great advantage, even against an otherwise superior adversary. He had of
course intended and expected only to defend himself without ever really
attacking, as men generally do when they fence with women. But he was
mistaken in supposing that this was what Veronica wanted.

She tried his wrist once or twice and played a little, feeling her way.
Then there was a quick flash, a disengagement, a feint, a lunge that was
like a man's, and as her long left ar