“I am not thinking of your grace at all,” said Mr. Caryll, slightly piqued by the tone the other took with him. “But to relieve your mind of such doubts as I see you entertain, I can assure you that it is out of no motives of weakness that I boggle at this combat. Though I confess that I am no ferrailleur, and that I abhor the duel as a means of settling a difference just as I abhor all things that are stupid and insensate, yet I am not the man to shirk an encounter where an encounter is forced upon me. But in this affair--” he paused, then ended--“there is more than meets your grace's eye, or, indeed, anyone's.” He was so calm, so master of himself, that Wharton perceived how groundless must have been his first notion. Whatever might be Mr. Caryll's motives, it was plain from his most perfect composure that they were not motives of fear. His grace's half-contemptuous smile was dissipated. “This is mere trifling, Mr. Caryll,” he reminded his principal, “and time is speeding. Your withdrawal now would not only be damaging to yourself; it would be damaging to the lady of whose fair name you have made yourself the champion. You must see that it is too late for doubts on the score of this meeting.” “Ay--by God!” swore Gascoigne hotly. “What a pox ails you, Caryll?” Mr. Caryll took off his hat and flung it on the ground behind him. “We must go on, then,” said he. “Gascoigne, see to the swords with his lordship's friend there.” With a relieved look, the major went forward to make the final preparations, whilst Mr. Caryll, attended by Wharton, rapidly divested himself of coat and waistcoat, then kicked off his light shoes, and stood ready, a slight, lithe, graceful figure in white Holland shirt and pearl-colored small clothes. A moment later the adversaries were face to face--Rotherby, divested of his wig and with a kerchief bound about his close-cropped head, all a trembling eagerness; Mr. Caryll with a reluctance lightly masked by a dangerous composure. There was a perfunctory salute--a mere presenting of arms--and the blades swept round in a half-circle to their first meeting. But Rotherby, without so much as allowing his steel to touch his opponent's, as the laws of courtesy demanded, swirled it away again into the higher lines and lunged. It was almost like a foul attempt to take his adversary unawares and unprepared, and for a second it looked as if it must succeed. It must have succeeded but for the miraculous quickness of Mr. Caryll. Swinging round on the ball of his right foot, lightly and gracefully as a dancing master, and with no sign of haste or fear in his amazing speed, he let the other's hard-driven blade glance past him, to meet nothing but the empty air. As a result, by the very force of the stroke, Rotherby found himself over-reached and carried beyond his point of aim; while Mr. Caryll's sideward movement brought him not only nearer his opponent, but entirely within his guard.