Verplank ignored him utterly. In the center of the garden the seconds grouped together, were concluding details. Beyond, near the house, Barouffski stood. He also was now bare-armed. Near him, emptying a case, was the young man with the serious face. Beside him, placed upright against a wall, were two long green bags. From the street came the usual rumble, the noise of motors, the cries of hawkers, the snorting of stallions, the clatter of hoofs.
Silverstairs, abandoning the others went over to Verplank.
“De Fresnoy has been chosen director.”
Verplank, from his trousers pocket, had taken a pair of gloves. The palm of one of them, previously moistened, had been dusted with rosin. Now, as he put it on, he looked across at Barouffski who was looking at him. The man’s bare arms were hairy and the sight of them was repugnant to Verplank. At once all the jealousy, all the hate of the male, mounted like wine to his head. He coloured, his hand shook. Then, resolutely, he reacted. In a moment he had again control of himself and it was idly, with an air of indifference, as he finished with his glove, that, in reference to the dinner that evening, he said:
“Are you to have many people tonight?”
Silverstairs, delighted that Verplank, showing up in such form, should be so sure of the result, laughed. “No, it is to be small and early. Afterward we go on to a play. The missis has a box for something, the Gymnase I think.”
Verplank bent over and turned up the ends of his trousers. A moment before he had been considering methods of attack, in particular a direct riposte after a certain parade and it was springingly, as though delivering it, that he straightened.
But now de Fresnoy approached. Silverstairs moved to one side where he was joined by Tyszkiewicz, a thin, tall man with a prominent nose and an air vaguely pedagogic, and by Palencia who, with great black eyebrows that met and a full black beard, looked like Fra Diavolo disguised as a clubman.
From one of the long green bags de Fresnoy had taken a pair of foils. These he offered, hilt foremost, to Verplank who grasped one and then to gauge its temper, or his own, lashed the air with it. The movement revealed a suppleness of arm, a muscular ease, the swelling biceps which training alone provides.
Save Barouffski, no one noticed. For a moment his eyes shifted absently. It was as though he too had meditated a coup and now was meditating another. Meanwhile he also had received a foil.
“Messieurs!” de Fresnoy called. He spoke in a loud, clear voice. He had moved back and stood at an angle to Barouffski and Verplank. Opposite, at an equal angle were the seconds and surgeons. All now were so stationed that they formed a sort of cross.
“Messieurs, I do not need to remind you of the common loyalty to be observed. What I have to say is that the encounter will proceed in engagements of three minutes, followed each by three minutes of repose, until one of you is incapacitated.”
De Fresnoy looked from Barouffski to Verplank. At once in his loud, clear voice he called:
“On guard!”
The two men fell into position. De Fresnoy moved forward, took in either hand the foils at the points, drew them together until they met, left them so and moved back.
“Allez, messieurs!”
At the word “Allez,” or, in English, “go,” and without waiting for the term “Messieurs” that followed, instantly Barouffski lunged. His foil pierced Verplank in the cheek and touched the upper jaw.
Verplank had a vision of a footman peering from a window, a taste of something hot and acrid in his mouth, a sense of pain, the sensation of vulperine fury.
De Fresnoy’s face had grown red as his neckcloth. He brandished his stick.
“Monsieur!” he cried at Barouffski. “Your conduct is odious. You shall answer to me for it.”
Barouffski bowed. “For the expression which it has pleased you to employ, you shall answer to me.”
“Permit me! Permit me!” Tyszkiewicz interjected. “To what do you object?”
Angrily de Fresnoy turned at him. “Your principal drew before the order. He—”
“Permit me! Permit me!” Tyszkiewicz interrupted. “The word ‘Allez’ is an order. The moment it is uttered hostilities begin. The term ‘Messieurs’ is but a polite accessory, a term which may or may not be employed.”
Insolently de Fresnoy considered him. “I have no lessons to receive from you.”
“Permit me! Permit me—”
But de Fresnoy had turned on his heel. Before him Verplank stood, Silverstairs on one side, the old surgeon on the other. The young surgeon had joined them. Beyond, Barouffski was examining the point of his foil.
From Verplank’s mouth and face blood was running. The wound had not improved his appearance. The old surgeon, on tiptoes, was staunching it.
“What I like,” he confided, speaking the while very unctuously as though what he was saying would be a comfort to Verplank; “what I like is to attend to gentlemen whose wives have deceived them. Outraged husbands, monsieur, that is my specialty!”
Verplank brushed him aside, shook his foil, and called at de Fresnoy.
“Are the three minutes up?”
“Monsieur!” the old surgeon protested.
The young surgeon intervened.
“But, monsieur—”
De Fresnoy motioned at them.
“Is he in a condition to continue?”
“Why not?” Verplank scornfully replied.
He raised his left hand, and, with a gesture of excuse, turned and spat. He looked up. His mouth was on fire, his jaw burned, the wound in his cheek was a flame. Yet these things but added to the intensity of his eyes. They blazed. There was blood on his face, on his chin, on his shirt, on his feet. He was hideous. But he was a man, and a mad one.
“He ought to be horsewhipped,” muttered Silverstairs, glaring as he spoke at Barouffski, who was talking to his seconds.
“On guard, then!” called de Fresnoy.
“Permit me, permit me,” cried Tyszkiewicz. “The point of my principal’s sword is broken.”
“Give him another then,”
