"No, I think the princess is tired, and horses don't interest

her," Vronsky said to Anna, who wanted to go on to the stables,

where Sviazhsky wished to see the new stallion. "You go on,

while I escort the princess home, and we'll have a little talk,"

he said, "if you would like that?" he added, turning to her.

"I know nothing about horses, and I shall be delighted,"

answered Darya Alexandrovna, rather astonished.

She saw by Vronsky's face that he wanted something from her. She

was not mistaken. As soon as they had passed through the little

gate back into the garden, he looked in the direction Anna had

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taken, and having made sure that she could neither hear nor see

them, he began: "You guess that I have something I want to say to you," he said,

looking at her with laughing eyes. "I am not wrong in believing

you to be a friend of Anna's." He took off his hat, and taking

out his handkerchief, wiped his head, which was growing bald.

Darya Alexandrovna made no answer, and merely stared at him with

dismay. When she was left alone with him, she suddenly felt

afraid; his laughing eyes and stern expression scared her.

The most diverse suppositions as to what he was about to speak of

to her flashed into her brain. "He is going to beg me to come to

stay with them with the children, and I shall have to refuse; or

to create a set that will receive Anna in Moscow.... Or isn't it

Vassenka Veslovsky and his relations with Anna? Or perhaps about

Kitty, that he feels he was to blame?" All her conjectures were

unpleasant, but she did not guess what he really wanted to talk

about to her.

"You have so much influence with Anna, she is so fond of you," he

said; "do help me."

Darya Alexandrovna looked with timid inquiry into his energetic

face, which under the lime-trees was continually being lighted up

in patches by the sunshine, and then passing into complete shadow

again. She waited for him to say more, but he walked in silence

beside her, scratching with his cane in the gravel.

"You have come to see us, you, the only woman of Anna's former

friends--I don't count Princess Varvara--but I know that you have

done this not because you regard our position as normal, but

because, understanding all the difficulty of the position, you

still love her and want to be a help to her. Have I understood

you rightly?" he asked, looking round at her.




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