I observed that the clock in the studio indicated the moment of 12.18 when the contest began. It lasted for an hour or more, as I thought, when it ended with blood-flowing from the sword-arm of the count at 12.21. The count was satisfied and breathing heavily. Forbes was fresh and strong. “It is enough,” the slim count shouted, and the battle was over. “You play with the sword so skilful,” the latter panted, as De Langueville and the surgeon began to dress his wound. “All you need is a pair of lungs,” said Forbes. “The pair you have may do for sucking cigarettes, but not for fighting.” “And I politely request that you do not use them again in making love to Miss Norris,” I said. “Hereafter I shall carry a fork with me, and any man who follows us again will get it run into him. But now that you know that they do not want to graft you on their family tree you will, of course, annoy them no more. I expect you're a much better fellow than you seem to be.” “And they will permission her to marry Raspagnetti?” he demanded. “Why not?” was my query. “Well, he has been married already and has amuse himself by dragging his wife around his palace by the hairs of her head.” “It's a bad fashion,” I said; “it wears out the carpets.” He looked puzzled. “But it's an ancient diversion of the Romans,” I went on, remembering that panel in one of the galleries which portrayed the extraction of the whiskers of a captive who was tied hand and foot--one of the basest amusements I can think of. As we talked the surgeon was at work on the arm of the young man. “Let's go and get a bite to eat,” Richard proposed, and we made our escape. While we were eating he said: “Don't say anything of my part in this little scrap. I'm ashamed of it. To draw blood from him is like taking candy from a child.” At the hotel Richard found a cable that summoned him to New York. Late that afternoon Gwendolyn and her mother and Betsey went with him to the station where he took a train for the north. I bade the boy good-by and said as I did so: “Leave the case in my hands again.” “It's hopeless!” said he. “Not exactly!” I answered. “She has turned me down.” “Turned you down?” “Yes, I had a talk with her last evening.” “You'll have to try it again some other evening,” I said. “She doesn't want to marry any one. That's about the way she puts it--but more politely. I told her that if she didn't want to be proposed to again she'd better avoid me. I expect to convince her that she's wrong.” He left me, and I went to see Norris, who had sent word that he wished to talk with me. XIV.--MISS GWENDOLYN DEFINES HER POSITION I FOUND Norris looking better, and it's a sure thing that I was looking worse. I felt weary--the natural reaction of all that deviltry! Exercise with the pitchfork is all right under proper circumstances, but a man near fifty years of age should use more care than I had done in the choice of circumstances. “What's the matter?” was the query of Norris.