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 kievitch, "had better go with Maska and try the kroket-gro-und, which has just been clipped. You and I will have time to have a little confidential talk while taking our tea. We'll have a cozy chat, won't we?" she added in English, addressing Anna with a smile, and taking her hand, in which she held a sunshade.

"All the more willingly because I cannot stay long. I must call on old Vrede; I have been promising for a hundred years to come and see her," said Anna, to whom the lie, though contrary to her nature, seemed not only simple and easy, but even pleasurable. Why she said a thing which she forgot the second after, she herself could not have told; she said it at haphazard, so that, in case Vronsky were not coming, she might have a way of escape, and try to find him elsewhere; and why she happened to select the name of old Freilina Vrede rather than any other of her acquaintances was likewise inexplicable. But, as events proved, out of all the possible schemes for meeting Vronsky, she could not have chosen a better.

"No, I shall not let you go," replied Betsy, scrutinizing Anna's face. "Indeed, if I were not so fond of you, I should be tempted to be vexed with you; anybody would think that you were afraid of my company compromising you.—Tea in the little parlor, if you please," said she to the lackey, blinking her eyes as was habitual with her; and, taking the letter from him, she began to read it.

"Alekseï disappoints us," said she in French. "He writes that he cannot come," she added, in a tone as simple and unaffected as if it had never entered her mind that Vronsky was of any more interest to Anna than as a possible partner in a game of croquet. Anna knew that Betsy knew all; but, as she heard Betsy speak of Vronsky now, she almost brought herself to believe for a moment that she knew nothing.

"Ah!" she said indifferently, as if it was a detail which did not interest her. "How," she continued, still smiling, "could your society compromise any one?"