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 ployed sitting with her son,—who had his dinner by himself,—in arranging her things, and in reading and answering the letters and notes heaped up on her writing-table.

The sensation of causeless shame, and the agitation from which she had suffered so strangely during her journey, now completely disappeared. Under the conditions of her ordinary every-day life, she felt calm, and free from reproach, and she was filled with wonder as she recalled her condition of the night before.

"What was it? Nothing. Vronsky said a foolish thing; it is easy to put an end to such nonsense, and I answered him exactly right. To speak of it to my husband is unnecessary and impossible. To speak about it would seem to attach importance to what has none."

And she recalled how, when a young subordinate of her husband's in Petersburg had almost made her a declaration and she had told him about it, Alekseï Aleksandrovitch answered that as she went into society, she, like all society women, might expect such experiences, but that he had perfect confidence in her tact, and never would permit himself to humiliate her or him by jealousy. "Why tell, then? Besides, thank God, there is nothing to tell."

CHAPTER XXXIII

returned from the ministry about four o'clock; but, as often happened, he found no time to speak to Anna. He went directly to his private room to give audience to some petitioners who were waiting for him, and to sign some papers brought him by his chief secretary.

The Karenins always had at least three visitors to dine with them; and that day there came an old lady, a cousin of Alekseï Aleksandrovitch's, a department director with his wife, and a young man recommended to Alekseï Aleksandrovitch for employment. Anna came to the drawing-room to receive them at five o'clock pre-