As with a breaking sweep Andre-Louis parried the heavy lunge in
which that first series of passes culminated, he actually laughed
- gleefully, after the fashion of a boy at a sport he loves.
That extraordinary, ill-timed laugh made M. de La Tour d'Azyr's
recovery hastier and less correctly dignified than it would otherwise
have been. It startled and discomposed him, who had already been
discomposed by the failure to get home with a lunge so beautifully
timed and so truly delivered.
He, too, had realized that his opponent's force was above anything
that he could have expected, fencing-master though he might be, and
on that account he had put forth his utmost energy to make an end
at once.
More than the actual parry, the laugh by which it was accompanied
seemed to make of that end no more than a beginning. And yet it
was the end of something. It was the end of that absolute confidence
that had hitherto inspired M. de La Tour d'Azyr. He no longer looked
upon the issue as a thing forgone. He realized that if he was to
prevail in this encounter, he must go warily and fence as he had
never fenced yet in all his life.
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