promise to discharge his weapon in the air, if the duel was with pistols,
or, if it was with swords, simply to disarm his enemy?

Like nearly all persons unversed in the art, she believed in infallible
fencers, in marksmen who never missed their aim, and she had also ideas
profoundly, absolutely inexact on the relations of one man with another
in the matter of an insult. But how can women admit that inflexible
rigor in certain cases, which forms the foundation of manly relations,
when they themselves allow of a similar rigor neither in their arguments
with men, nor in their discussions among themselves? Accustomed always
to appeal from convention to instinct and from reason to sentiment, they
are, in the face of certain laws, be they those of justice or of honor,
in a state of incomprehension worse than ignorance. A duel, for example,
appears to them like an arbitrary drama, which the wish of one of those
concerned can change at his fancy. Ninety-nine women out of a hundred
would think like Lydia Maitland of hastening to the adversary of the man
they love, to demand, to beg for his life. Let us add, however, that the
majority would not carry out that thought. They would confine themselves
to sewing in the vest of their beloved some blessed medal, in
recommending him to the Providence, which, for them, is still the
favoritism of heaven. Lydia felt that if ever Florent should learn of
her step with regard to Gorka, he would be very indignant. But who would
tell him? She was agitated by one of those fevers of fear and of remorse
which are too acute not to act, cost what it might. Her carriage was
announced, and she entered it, giving the address of the Palazzetto
Doria. In what terms should she approach the man to whom she was about
to pay that audacious and absurd visit? Ah, what mattered it? The
circumstances would inspire her. Her desire to cut short the duel was so
strong that she did not doubt of success.