Sport: Like Cyrano

"Miss Helene Mayer and Miss Marion Lloyd in the final bout," said the announcer at the national women's fencing championship last week. The people in the boxes of the grand ballroom at the American Woman's Association Clubhouse in Manhattan smiled understandingly. They knew that the announcement was technically incorrect—a defeat for Miss Mayer would mean a fence-off—but they knew also that a defeat for Miss Mayer was highly improbable. A 23-year-old from Offenbach-am-Main, Germany, she was indisputably the best woman fencer in the world from 1927 to 1932, when she was defeated in...