A Gentleman of France: Being the Memoirs of Gaston de Bonne Sieur de Marsac by - (best love novels of all time .txt) 📕

fellow was an Italian captain in the king’s pay, famous for his skill with the sword and the many duels in which he had displayed it.

Mademoiselle, though she did not know this, bore with his insolence with a patience which astonished me; while madame appeared unconscious of it. Nevertheless, I was glad when he retired and left us in peace. I seized the moment of his absence to escort the ladies through the room and upstairs to their apartment, the door of which I saw locked and secured. That done I breathed more freely; and feeling thankful that I had been able to keep my temper, took the episode to be at an end.

But in this I was mistaken, as I found when I returned to the room in which we had supped, my intention being to go through it to the stables. I had not taken two paces across the floor before I found my road blocked by the Italian, and read alike in his eyes and in the faces of the company—of whom many hastened to climb the tables to see what passed—that the meeting was premeditated. The man’s face was flushed with wine; proud of his many victories, he eyed me with a boastful contempt my patience had perhaps given him the right to feel.

‘Ha! well met, sir,’ he said, sweeping the floor with his cap in an exaggeration of respect, ‘now, perhaps, your high-mightiness will condescend to unmask? The table is no longer between us, nor are your fair friends here to protect their CHER AMI!’

‘If I still refuse, sir,’ I said civilly, wavering between anger and prudence, and hoping still to avoid a quarrel which might endanger us all, ‘be good enough to attribute it to private motives, and to no desire to disoblige you.’

‘No, I do not think you wish to disoblige me,’ he answered, laughing scornfully—and a dozen voices echoed the gibe. ‘But for your private motives, the devil take them! Is that plain enough, sir?’

‘It is plain enough to show me that you are an ill-bred man!’ I answered, choler getting the better of me. ‘Let me pass, sir.’

‘Unmask!’ he retorted, moving so as still to detain me, ‘or shall I call in the grooms to perform the office for you?’

Seeing at last that all my attempts to evade the man only fed his vanity, and encouraged him to further excesses, and that the motley crowd, who filled the room and already formed a circle round us, had made up their minds to see sport, I would no longer balk them; I could no longer do it, indeed, with honour. I looked round, therefore, for someone whom I might enlist as my second, but I saw no one with whom I had the least acquaintance. The room was lined from table to ceiling with mocking faces and scornful eyes all turned to me.

My opponent saw the look, and misread it; being much accustomed, I imagine, to a one-sided battle. He laughed contemptuously. ‘No, my friend, there is no way out of it,’ he said. ‘Let me see your pretty face, or fight.’

‘So be it,’ I said quietly. ‘If I have no other choice, I will fight.’

‘In your mask?’ he cried incredulously.

‘Yes,’ I said sternly, feeling every nerve tingle with long-suppressed rage. ‘I will fight as I am. Off with your back and breast, if you are a man. And I will so deal with you that if you see to-morrow’s sun you shall need a mask for the rest of your days!’

‘Ho! ho!’ he answered, scowling at me in surprise, ‘you sing in a different key now. But I will put a term to it. There is space enough between these tables, if you can use your weapon; and much more than you will need to-morrow.’

‘To-morrow will show,’ I retorted.

Without more ado he unfastened the buckles of his breast-piece, and relieving himself of it, stepped back a pace. Those of the bystanders who occupied the part of the room he indicated—a space bounded by four tables, and not unfit for the purpose, though somewhat confined—hastened to get out of it, and seize instead upon neighbouring posts of ‘vantage. The man’s reputation was such, and his fame so great, that on all sides I heard naught but wagers offered against me at odds; but this circumstance, which might have flurried a younger man and numbed his arm, served only to set me on making the most of such openings as the fellow’s presumption and certainty of success would be sure to afford.

The news of the challenge running through the house had brought together by this time so many people as to fill the room from end to end, and even to obscure the light, which was beginning to wane. At the last moment, when we were on the point of engaging, a slight commotion marked the admission to the front of three or four persons, whose consequence or attendants gained them this advantage. I believed them to be the party of four I have mentioned, but at the time I could not be certain.

In the few seconds of waiting while this went forward I examined our relative positions with the fullest intention of killing the man—whose glittering eyes and fierce smile filled me with a loathing which was very nearly hatred—if I could. The line of windows lay to my right and his left. The evening light fell across us, whitening the row of faces on my left, but leaving those on my right in shadow. It occurred to me on the instant that my mask was actually an advantage, seeing that it protected my sight from the side-light, and enabled me to watch his eyes and point with more concentration.

‘You will be the twenty-third man I have killed!’ he said boastfully, as we crossed swords and stood an instant on guard.

‘Take care!’ I answered. ‘You have twenty-three against you!’

A swift lunge was his only answer. I parried it, and thrust, and we fell to work. We had not exchanged half a dozen blows, however, before I saw that I should need all the advantage which my mask and greater caution gave me. I had met my match, and it might be something more; but that for a time it was impossible to tell. He had the longer weapon, and I the longer reach. He preferred the point, after the new Italian fashion, and I the blade. He was somewhat flushed with wine, while my arm had scarcely recovered the strength of which illness had deprived me.

On the other hand, excited at the first by the cries of his backers, he played rather wildly; while I held myself prepared, and keeping up a strong guard, waited cautiously for any opening or mistake on his part.

The crowd round us, which had hailed our first passes with noisy cries of derision and triumph, fell silent after a while, surprised and taken aback by their champion’s failure to spit me at the first onslaught. My reluctance to engage had led them to predict a short fight and an easy victory.

Convinced of the contrary, they began to watch each stroke with bated breath; or now and again, muttering the name of Jarnac, broke into brief exclamations as a blow more savage than usual drew sparks from our blades, and made the rafters ring with the harsh grinding of steel on steel.

The surprise of the crowd, however, was a small thing compared with that