Page:The Unspeakable Gentleman (IA unspeakablegent00marq).pdf/120

 sively, as though clawing at some unseen object close beside him, and then his breath whistled through his teeth.

"You fool," he shouted suddenly, his temper bursting the weakened barriers of control. "You damned, unregenerate fool!"

And then, for an instant, my father's icy placidity left him. His lips leapt back from his teeth. There was a hissing whir of steel. His small sword made an arc of light through the yard of space that parted them. His body lunged forward.

"So you will have it, will you?" His words seemed to choke him. "Take it, then," he roared, "take it to hell, where you belong."

It was, I say, the matter of an instant. In a leaden second he stood poised, his wrist drawn back, while the eyes of the other stared in horror at the long, thin blade. And then the welts of crimson that had mounted to his face, disfiguring it into a writhing fury, slowly effaced themselves. His lips once more assumed a thin, immobile line. Again his watchful indolence returned to him, and slowly, very slowly, he lowered the point to the floor's scarred surface. His voice returned to its pleasant modula-