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 Relzières, 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 Relzières," 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 Relzières a great friend of your fiancé at one time?" said Jeanne.
"A great friend? I should think he was," said Germaine. "Why, it was through Relzières that we got to know Jacques."
"Where was that?" said Marie.
"Here—in this very château," said Germaine.
