The books along the walls seemed to cry out against the unseemly and unholy strife.

But now both men were in that atmosphere of supreme egoism where only their two selves moved, and where the only thing that mattered on earth was the issue of this strife.

Fournel could only think of how to save his life, and to do that he must become the aggressor, for his wounds were bleeding hard, and he must have more wounds, if the fight went on without harm to the Seigneur.
"You know now what it is to insult a Frenchman--On guard!" again cried the Seigneur, in a shriller voice, for everything in him was pitched to the highest note.
He again attacked, and the sound of the large swords meeting clashed on the soft air.

As they struggled, a voice came ringing through the passages, singing a bar from an opera: "Oh eager golden day, Oh happy evening hour, Behold my lover cometh from fields of wrath and hate! Sheathed is his sword; he cometh to my bower; In war he findeth honour, and love within the gate." The voice came nearer and nearer.

It pierced the tragic separateness of the scene of blood.