"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
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."