Heels together, he bowed with the proper stiffness. “Forgive the needless intrusion. We meet, then, at eight o’clock in the Pré-aux-Cêvres.” He turned to depart.
For the first time in one of these affairs it was Florimond who was disconcerted. He set a detaining hand upon the other’s shoulder.
“A moment, Monsieur le mystérieux. What the devil do you mean by ‘everything arranges itself’?”
“Just that.” The eyes in the moon-face twinkled with amusement. “For me, as for you, monsieur, a duel with an ordinary civilian would be a serious matter. If there should be an accident the consequences might be grave. You see, I am, myself, a fencing-master. But since you are of the fraternity there are no grounds whatever for my apprehensions.”
A sensation of cold began to creep up Florimond’s spine. As a Swordsman he knew that whilst among asses he might be a lion, among lions he was certainly an ass. He looked more closely at this stranger in whom he had been so mistaken; he looked beyond the round placidity of that pallid countenance, and observed that the man was moderately tall, well-knit, of a good length of arm and an exceptionally well-turned leg.
“You are, yourself, a fencing-master?” he echoed, and his stare was foolish.
“Even of some little celebrity,” was the answer in a tone of mild deprecation. “My name is Danet.”
“Danet?” Florimond’s voice cracked on the name. “Not... not Guillaume Danet?”
Again the stranger bowed, that stiff bow from the waist so suggestive of the swordsman. “The same. Very much at your service. I see that you have heard of me. You may even have read my little treatise. It has made some noise in the world. Until tomorrow, then, at eight o’clock, my dear confrere.”
“But... a moment, mon maître!”
“Yes?” The other paused, his eyebrows raised.
“I... I did not know...
He heard his own phrase cast in his teeth.
“Am I to wear the name Guillaume Danet on a placard on my breast as a warning to impertinent little provincial fencing-masters?”
“But to meet you, mon maître... It is not possible. You cannot wish it. It would be my ruin.”
“That will not matter since you will probably not survive it.”
Wide-eyed, pallid, Florimond stared at this opponent, the very mildness of whose aspect had now become so terrible. Already he had the sensation of a foot or so of cold steel in his vitals. “I will apo... pologize, mon maître.”
“Apologize! What poltroonery! You provoke, wantonly you insult the man you suppose to be incapable of defending himself, and you imagine that an apology in private and in secret will adjust the matter. You are caught in your own trap, I think. You had better be making your soul, Monsieur de la Galette. Good night!”
“Wait! Ah, wait! If now... if I were to compensate you...”
“Compensate me? I don’t understand.”
“If twenty-five louis...
“You miserable cutthroat, do you dare to offer me money? Not for fifty louis would I forgo the satisfaction of dealing with you as you deserve. To bleed you of a hundred louis might perhaps be to punish you enough. But—”
“I will pay it! Master, I will pay it!” Frantically, Florimond made an offer that would beggar him of almost every louis wrung from the victims of his dishonest practices.
Round grew the eyes and the mouth in the round face that confronted him. “A hundred louis!” The great master’s tone reminded Florimond that every man has his price. Slowly Monsieur Danet seemed to resolve. Slowly, with a shrug of the shoulders, he spoke. “After all, why not? The object, when all is said, is to punish your temerity. Since you are penitent, to kill you, or even to maim you, might be too much. I am a man of heart, I hope. It is not in my nature to be inclement. I will take your hundred louis, and bestow them on the poor of Paris.”
It was of no consolation to Florimond to assure himself that the poor of Paris would never see a sou of the money. With a heart of lead he counted out his hoard, and found to his dismay that ninety-eight louis was his total fortune. But now the great Danet showed himself not only clement, but magnanimous. Far from exacting the last obol, he actually left Florimond three louis for his immediate needs.
You conceive, however, that this generosity did not mitigate the fencing-master’s bitter chagrin to see the fruits of months of crafty labour swept away. The only solace he found for his mortification was the reflection that what he had done once he could do again. There would be no lack of pigeons still to be plucked. In future, however, he must proceed with greater caution and not trust too readily to a mild and simple exterior.
So, putting a brave face on the matter, he resumed his habits, and each evening at the Sucking Calf he sat like a spider in its web, waiting for the unwary fly to blunder in.
They were on the threshold of winter, a season of diminished travelling, and for the best part of a fortnight Florimond’s vigilance went unrewarded. Then one evening a traveller arrived whose entrance was like a gust of wind, whose voice, summoning the landlord, was sharp with authority.
The vintner bustled forward, and Florimond could scarcely believe his ears.
“Landlord, I am seeking here in Rheims a rascally fencing-master, who is a disgrace to his calling, and who goes by the flamboyant name of Florimond Souverain de la Galette. Can you tell me at what address he may be found?”
It was Florimond, himself, who answered.
With the feeling that the gods were casting a timely gift into his very lap, he sprang from his chair. He seemed to spin round in the act of leaping, and landed, heels together, in a rectangle before the inquirer.
“He is here.”
He was confronted by a tall, lithe gentleman elegantly dressed in black, who regarded him sternly out of an aquiline countenance. A cold stern voice rang upon the awed stillness of the room.
“You are that scoundrel, are you?”
At least a dozen pairs of eyes were turned in pity upon this rash stranger who came thus to skewer himself, as it were, upon the fencing-master’s sword. A dozen pairs of ears listened attentively to his further words.
“Another in my place might account himself your debtor. For I have to thank you for four pupils who have sought me in the course of the past two months. Each of them had been craftily entangled by you in a quarrel, so identical in detail as to betray its calculated nature. Each of them, so as to keep a whole skin, paid you in blackmail either ten or fifteen louis. Before the last of them came to me for fencing lessons I had already begun to understand the rascal trade you are driving. I have since assured myself of it, and for the honour of the profession of arms, of which I am a jealous guardian, I account it my duty to put an end to it.”
“Who are you?”
“You have the right to know. I am Guillaume Danet, master-at-arms of the King’s Academics.”
“You? You, Guillaume Danet?” Goggle-eyed, Florimond regarded him; and then his glance was drawn beyond this tall stranger to a man who entered at that moment, carrying a valise: a man in sober brown that looked like a plain livery: a man with a round, bland, pallid moon-face, hatefully well known to Florimond.
“Then who the devil may that be, that fellow behind you?”
The stranger looked over his shoulder.
“That? That is my valet. The man I sent here a couple of weeks ago, to verify my conclusions about you.”
And then this poor, rascally Florimond committed his worst blunder. Like all rogues, judging the world to be peopled by rogues having kindred aims, he uttered a snarling laugh.
“He did more than that. Me anticipated you. You are behind the fair, Monsieur Danet.”