“If I were to offer compensation for the injury, monsieur?”
“Compensation?” Florimond’s eye was terrible.
“You live by the sword. You give lessons for money. Why should you not satisfy your honour by... by...” He halted foolishly.
“By what, monsieur?”
Desfresnes took a flying leap at his goal. “By ten louis.”
“Leave my house, sir!” roared the incorruptible Florimond.
“Fifteen louis,” gasped Desfresnes, putting up his hands as a shield against the other’s wrath.
But the fierceness had gone out of the fencing-master’s eyes. His lips twitched.
“Fifteen louis! Bah! Name of a name, it costs more than that to smack my face, young sir.”
“Twenty, then,” cried Desfresnes more hopefully.
Florimond became suddenly thoughtful. He stroked his chin. Here was a queer, unexpected shaping of events. Twenty louis was as much as he now could earn in a year. For half the sum he would gladly allow himself to be slapped on both cheeks and any other part of his body that might tempt an assailant. He cleared his throat.
“You understand, of course, that in these matters there can be no question of compensation. Honour is not for sale. But a fine, now: that might be different. After all, I do not want your blood. By a fine of, say, twenty louis, I might consider that I had sufficiently mulcted your temerity. Yes, all things considered, I think I might.”
Desfresnes lost not an instant, lest Florimond should change his mind. He whipped out a fat purse, bled himself and departed.
And from that hour Florimond was a changed man.
An unsuspected source of easy profit had suddenly revealed itself. It was the open door that tempts even the saint. Florimond strangled a conscience that had never been robust, and crossed the threshold.
Twice, in the month that followed, he gave such provocation to travellers resting at the Sucking Calf that on each occasion a challenge resulted. True, the meetings provoked never followed. If Florimond, hitherto so gentle and unobtrusive, had suddenly, to the dismay of his three card-playing friends, become truculent and aggressive, at least, to their consolation, he was always to be mollified by a visit from his intended opponent. Commonly the visit was suggested by Fleury. Of the nature of the mollification which Florimond exacted, his honest friends had no suspicion. From the fact that he now spent money more freely, they simply assumed that the affairs of his academy were improving. Nor did these good, dull men draw any inference from the circumstance that his clothes assumed a character of extreme bourgeois simplicity, and that he abandoned the wearing of a sword, which, in the past, had been an integral part of his apparel.
Their suspicions might have been aroused if Florimond’s victims had walked less readily into his snares. Shrewd in his judgment of likely subjects, he spread his net only for the obviously self-sufficient numskull, and he never forced the pace, always leaving it for the victim to commit the extreme provocation.
Subjects such as these were, after all, by no means common. It is certain that at no time did the average run higher than one a fortnight, and with this, Florimond was at first abundantly content. Greed, however, increasing with prosperity, and fostered by the ease with which it could be satisfied, he grew less cautious.
Yet all went smoothly for him until one Autumn evening, when a moon-faced, quiet-mannered man in the plainest of tie-wigs, his sober brown suit almost suggesting a plain livery, descended from a post chaise at the Sucking Calf and mildly ordered himself supper, a bottle of wine and a bed for the night.
From his table in the usual corner Florimond observed him narrowly, and judged him a timid simpleton of the merchant class, yet a man of substance, since he travelled in a chaise and not by the stage. He was an ideal victim, save that his unobtrusiveness opened no avenue of approach.
Demure and self-effacing, he ate his supper, and Florimond began to fear that at any moment now he might call for his candle, and so escape. Some departure from ordinary tactics became necessary.
Florimond loaded a pipe, rose and crossed the room in quest of a light.
The stranger, having supped, had slewed his chair round and was sitting at his ease, a little unbuttoned and somnolent, his legs stretched before him. Florimond trod upon the fellow’s foot; after that he stood glaring into the moon-face that was raised in a plaintive stare. Thus for a long moment. Then:
“I am waiting, monsieur,” said Florimond.
“Faith! So am I!” said Moon-face. “You trod on my foot, monsieur.”
“Let it teach you not to sprawl as if the inn belonged to you.”
The man sat up. “There was plenty of room to pass, monsieur,” he protested, but so mildly plaintive as merely to advertise his timidity.
Florimond had recourse to stronger measures. “You are, it seems, not only a clumsy lout, but also a mannerless one. I might have pitched into the fire, yet you have not even the grace to offer your excuses.”
“You... you are amazingly uncivil,” the other remonstrated. The round face grew pink, and a wrinkle appeared at the base of the nose.
“If you don’t like my tone, you have your remedy, monsieur,” snapped Florimond.
Rounder grew the eyes in that bland countenance. “I wonder if you are deliberately seeking to provoke me.”
Florimond laughed. “Should I waste my time? I know a poltroon when I see one.”
“Now that really is going too far.” The stranger was obviously and deeply perturbed. “Oh, yes. Much too far. I do not think I could be expected to suffer that.” He rose from his chair at last, and called across to a group at a neighbouring table. “You there, messieurs! I take you to witness of the gross provocation I have received from this ill-mannered bully, and...”
Florimond’s piercing voice interrupted him.
“Must I box your cars before you will cease your insults?”
“Oh, no, monsieur. So much will not be necessary.” He sighed mournfully, in a reluctance almost comical. “If you will send a friend to me we will settle the details.”
It came so unexpectedly that, for a moment, Florimond was almost out of countenance. Then he brought his heels together, bowed stiffly from the waist, and stalked off to request of Fleury the usual service. After that, pursuing the tactics long since perfected for these occasions, he departed front the inn. As the unvarying routine of the matter had taught him to expect, it was not long before he was followed. Himself, as usual, he opened to the knock, and with his usual air of indignant surprise admitted the moon-faced gentleman. As usual the victim displayed all the signs of distress proper to these occasions. His nervousness made him falter and stammer.
“Mu... Monsieur, I realize that this is most irregular. Bu... but the fact is... I realize that I have been too hasty. It is necessary that I should explain that... that a meeting between us is, after all, quite... quite impossible.”
He paused there, prematurely as it seemed, and as if fascinated by the wicked smile that was laying bare the swordsman’s dog-tooth. Into that pause came the sarcastic answer that had done duty on every occasion since Desfresnes’:
“Ah! I am to wear a placard on my breast, so as to warn the impertinent that I am a fencing-master.”
But the phrase which hitherto had proved so disconcerting proved now the very opposite. The stranger’s expression completely changed. It became so quickened by surprise and relief that it entirely lost its foolish vacuity.
“A fencing-master! You are a fencing-master? Oh, but that makes a great difference.” The enlivened glance swept round the room, observed its bareness, the lines chalked on the floor, the trophies of foils, plastrons and masks adorning the walls. The man drew himself up. His figure seemed to acquire an access of virility. He actually smiled. “And this, of course, is your school. I see. I see. In that case everything arranges itself.”