The fellow's right to resent the small attentions I had shown to Mistress Mortimer I questioned greatly--she had plainly enough denied the existence of any relationship between them other than family friendship,--and I meant to teach this loyalist bully that I was not the sort to be driven away by loud words, or the flash of a sword.
He came at me fiercely enough, confident of his mastery of the weapon, and, no doubt, expecting me to prove an easy victim of his skill.

His first onslaught, a trick thrust under my guard, caused me to give back a step or two, and this small success yielded him the over-confidence I always prefer that an opponent have.

I was young, agile, cool-headed, instructed since early boyhood by my father, a rather famous swordsman, in the mysteries of the game, yet I preferred that Grant should deem me a novice.

With this in mind, and in order that I might better study the man's style, I remained strictly on defence, giving way slightly before the confident play of his steel, content with barely turning aside the gleaming point before it pricked me.

At first he mistook this for weakness, sneering at my parries, as he bore in with increasing recklessness.
"A club would be more in your line, I take it, Mr.Lieutenant Fortesque," he commented sarcastically, "but I'll play with you a while for practice--ah! that was a lucky turn of the wrist! So you do know a trick or two?
Perhaps you have a parry for that thrust as well! Ah! an inch more and I'd have pricked you--your defence is not bad for a boy! By all the gods, I tasted blood then--now I'll give you a harder nut to crack!" I was fighting silently, with lips closed, husbanding my breath, scarcely hearing his comments.