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 to which the Princess Betsy Tverskaya belonged, as it called for expenses beyond her means, and in her heart she preferred the first-mentioned coterie; but after her visit to Moscow all this was changed. She neglected her worthy old friends, and cared to go only into grand society. There she met Vronsky, and experienced tumultuous pleasure in these meetings. They met with especial frequency at the house of Betsy, who was a Vronskaya before her marriage, and was an own cousin of the count. Vronsky went everywhere that he was likely to meet Anna, and, if possible, spoke to her of his love. She gave him no encouragement; but every time she met him, there flamed up in her soul the same sense of animation which had seized her the moment that they met, for the first time, on the train at Moscow; she herself was conscious that at the sight of him this joy shone in her eyes, in her smile, but she had not the power to hide it.

Anna at first sincerely believed that she was angry because he persisted in following her; but one evening, not long after her return from Moscow, when she was present at a house where she expected to meet him, and he failed to come, she perceived clearly, by the pang that went through her heart, that she was deceiving herself, that this insistence of his not only was not disagreeable to her but that it formed the ruling passion of her life.

A famous diva was singing for the second time, and all the high society of Petersburg was at the theater. Vronsky, from his seat in the first row saw his cousin there, and without waiting for the entr'acte, left to visit her box.

"Why did n't you come to dinner?" she asked; and then with a smile she added, so as to be heard only by him, "I admire this clairvoyance of lovers; she was not there. But come to my house after the opera."

Vronsky looked at her questioningly. She nodded. He thanked her with a smile and sat down by her side.

"But how I miss your pleasantries; what have be-