Veronica rose, for she felt that she could not sit still by Gianluca’s side, with his words in her ear, her own scarcely cold upon her lips, and the man for whom she would have given her soul’s salvation, who would have died ten deaths for her, standing quietly there, looking on.  She walked nervously up and down the room.

“Should you like to fence?” asked Taquisara.  “We have not touched a foil to-day.”

Anything seemed good which could pass the time without talking.  But to her it seemed heartless just then.

“No,” she answered, almost curtly.  “It seems to me that we are always fencing.”

But Gianluca understood why she refused.  And to him, perhaps, anything was better than thinking.

“Please do!” he said.  “I enjoy it so much!”

Mechanically and without a word, she went to the corner where the foils and other things were kept in a great carved chest.

Taquisara moved a large table out of the way, pushing it slowly before him.

“Do you think you can see?  Or shall we have more lamps?” asked Veronica.

“I can see very well—­as well as one can, by lamp-light,” answered Taquisara, as he placed the lamps together upon the table, so that the light should fall sideways upon them when they fenced.

Veronica was glad to slip her mask over her face, just then.  She was conscious of the fact when she had done it, though she hardly knew what she was doing as she took a foil from the long chest and stepped out into the room to meet Taquisara.  Then, as he raised his arm to engage and she still held her foil down, her habitual interest in the amusement momentarily asserted itself.

“Shall we try that feint of yours that you were doing the other day?” she asked.  “You know, you touched me with it.  I think I can meet it now, for I have been thinking about it.”

“Yes, try it!” said Gianluca, from his chair.

“Certainly,” answered Taquisara.

Instantly, both fell into position and engaged.  Barely crossing foils, Taquisara executed the feint in question at once, and lunged his fullest length.  But Veronica had thought out the right parry and answer, and was quicker than he.

His weapon ran past her head without touching her, and as he recovered himself, hers shot out after him.  He uttered an exclamation as it ran under his arm, with a little soft resistance.

“Touched!” cried Veronica, at the same instant.

He said nothing.  Then, a second later, she uttered a sharp cry of horror, dropped her foil upon the floor and raising her mask stared at him with wild, white face.  Not heeding what she did, she had taken the sharp foil by mistake.  It was dark in the corner where the chest stood.

“It is nothing,” he said.  “It is nothing, I assure you.”

“What is the matter?” asked Gianluca, in astonishment, for he could not see that the foil had no button.