"You're joking, but all the same what you say is true," said
Germaine. "That's exactly what his cousin Madame de Relzieres said
to me the other day at the At Home she gave in my honour--wasn't it,
Sonia?" And she walked to the window, and, turning her back on them,
stared out of it.

"She HAS got her mouth full of that At Home," said Jeanne to Marie
in a low voice.

There was an awkward silence. Marie broke it:

"Speaking of Madame de Relzieres, do you know that she is on pins
and needles with anxiety? Her son is fighting a duel to-day," she
said.

"With whom?" said Sonia.

"No one knows. She got hold of a letter from the seconds," said
Marie.

"My mind is quite at rest about Relzieres," said Germaine. "He's a
first-class swordsman. No one could beat him."

Sonia did not seem to share her freedom from anxiety. Her forehead
was puckered in little lines of perplexity, as if she were puzzling
out some problem; and there was a look of something very like fear
in her gentle eyes.

"Wasn't Relzieres a great friend of your fiance at one time?" said