"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 yourself," Sonia muttered in a tone of
anguish. "And there's nothing to be done--nothing."

She pressed her hands to her eyes as if to shut out a hideous
vision.

Germaine did not hear her; she was staring at herself in a mirror,