The Duke's Duel, Cried Sonia

Sonia red through her without seeing her. Her face was a dead white. Fear had chilled the lustre from her skin. She pressed her hands to her eyes, as if to shut out a hideous vision. German pirouetted about the hall at the very height of triumph. To have a duke fighting a duel about her was far beyond the wild dreams of snobbishness. And once she clapped her hands and laughed aloud. He's fighting a swordsman of the first class, an invincible swordsman. There's nothing to be done. Nothing.