I bowed before him with the utmost politeness, as if craving his leave and tolerance for what I was about to do, and then, before he had recovered from his astonishment, I had laid that cane three times in quick succession across his shoulders.

With a cry at once of pain and of mortification, he sprang back, and his hand dropped to his hilt.
"Monsieur," Roxalanne cried to him, "do you not see that he is unarmed ?" But he saw nothing, or, if he saw, thanked Heaven that things were in such case, and got his sword out.

Thereupon Roxalanne would have stepped between us, but with arm outstretched I restrained her.
"Have no fear, mademoiselle," said I very quietly; for if the wrist that had overcome La Vertoile were not with a stick a match for a couple of such swords as this coxcomb's, then was I forever shamed.
He bore down upon me furiously, his point coming straight for my throat.
I took the blade on the cane; then, as he disengaged and came at me lower, I made counter-parry, and pursuing the circle after I had caught his steel, I carried it out of his hand.

It whirled an instant, a shimmering wheel of light, then it clattered against the marble balustrade half a dozen yards away.

With his sword it seemed that his courage, too, departed, and he stood at my mercy, a curious picture of foolishness, surprise, and fear.
Now the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache was a young man, and in the young we can forgive much.