"When I'm old and ugly I'll be the same," Betsy used to say; "but

for a pretty young woman like you it's early days for that house

of charity."

Anna had at first avoided as far as she could Princess

Tverskaya's world, because it necessitated an expenditure beyond

her means, and besides in her heart she preferred the first

circle. But since her visit to Moscow she had done quite the

contrary. She avoided her serious-minded friends, and went out

into the fashionable world. There she met Vronsky, and

experienced an agitating joy at those meetings. She met Vronsky

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specially often at Betsy's for Betsy was a Vronsky by birth and

his cousin. Vronsky was everywhere where he had any chance of

meeting Anna, and speaking to her, when he could, of his love.

She gave him no encouragement, but every time she met him there

surged up in her heart that same feeling of quickened life that

had come upon her that day in the railway carriage when she saw

him for the first time. She was conscious herself that her

delight sparkled in her eyes and curved her lips into a smile,

and she could not quench the expression of this delight.

At first Anna sincerely believed that she was displeased with him

for daring to pursue her. Soon after her return from Moscow, on

arriving at a soiree where she had expected to meet him, and not

finding him there, she realized distinctly from the rush of

disappointment that she had been deceiving herself, and that this

pursuit was not merely not distasteful to her, but that it made

the whole interest of her life.

A celebrated singer was singing for the second time, and all the

fashionable world was in the theater. Vronsky, seeing his

cousin from his stall in the front row, did not wait till the

entr'acte, but went to her box.

"Why didn't you come to dinner?" she said to him. "I marvel at

the second sight of lovers," she added with a smile, so that no

one but he could hear; "_she wasn't there_. But come after the

opera."

Vronsky looked inquiringly at her. She nodded. He thanked her

by a smile, and sat down beside her.

"But how I remember your jeers!" continued Princess Betsy, who

took a peculiar pleasure in following up this passion to a

successful issue. "What's become of all that? You're caught, my

dear boy."

"That's my one desire, to be caught," answered Vronsky, with his

serene, good-humored smile. "If I complain of anything it's only

that I'm not caught enough, to tell the truth. I begin to lose

hope."




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