"The duel! Monsieur de Relzières' duel!" cried Sonia.
"What? You don't think it was with Jacques?"
"I don't know—but this quarrel—the Duke's manner this morning—the Du Buits' drive—" said Sonia.
"Of course—of course! It's quite possible—in fact it's certain!" cried Germaine.
"It's horrible!" gasped Sonia. "Consider—just consider! Suppose something happened to him. Suppose the Duke—"
"It's me the Duke's fighting about!" cried Germaine proudly, with a little skipping jump of triumphant joy.
Sonia stared through her without seeing her. Her face was a dead white—fear had chilled the lustre from her skin; her breath panted through her parted lips; and her dilated eyes seemed to look on some dreadful picture.
Germaine pirouetted about the hall at the very height of triumph. To have a Duke fighting a duel about her was far beyond the wildest dreams of snobbishness. She chuckled again and again, and once she clapped her hands and laughed aloud.
"He's fighting a swordsman of the first class—an invincible swordsman—you said so your-
