The blade sent forth a keen hiss as it cut the air close, very close to Rene's nose.

He jerked his head and flung up his hand.
She laughed merrily, standing beautifully poised before him, the rapier's point slightly elevated.

Her short skirt left her feet and ankles free to show their graceful proportions and the perfect pose in which they held her supple body.
"You see what I can do with the colechemarde, eh, Monsieur Rene de Ronville!" she exclaimed, giving him a smile which fairly blinded him.
"Notice how very near to your neck I can thrust and yet not touch it.
Now!" She darted the keen point under his chin and drew it away so quickly that the stroke was like a glint of sunlight.
"What do you think of that as a nice and accurate piece of skill ?" She again resumed her pose, the right foot advanced, the left arm well back, her lissome, finely developed body leaning slightly forward.
Rene's hands were up before his face in a defensive position, palms outward.
Just then a chorus of men's voices sounded in the distance.

The river house was beginning its carousal with a song.

Alice let fall her sword's point and listened.
Rene looked about for his cap.
"I must be going," he said.
Another and louder swish of the rapier made him pirouette and dodge again with great energy.
"Don't," he cried, "that's dangerous; you'll put out my eyes; I never saw such a girl!" She laughed at him and kept on whipping the air dangerously near his eyes, until she had driven him backward as far as he could squeeze himself into a comer of the room.
Madame Roussillon came to the door from the kitchen and stood looking in and laughing, with her hands on her hips.