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 quickly in her former position, and looked at him in a frightened way. He saw that she had been crying.

"I am very grateful to you for your confidence in me," said he, gently, repeating in Russian the remark that he had just made in French before Betsy.

When he spoke to her in Russian, and used the familiar second person singular tui, this tui irritated Anna in spite of herself. "I am very grateful for your decision; for I agree with you that, since Count Vronsky is going away, there is no necessity of his coming here; besides...."

"Yes! but as I have said that, why repeat it?" interrupted Anna, with an annoyance which she could not control. "No necessity," she thought, "for a man to say farewell to the woman he loves, for whom he has wished to commit suicide, and who cannot live without him!"

She pressed her lips together, and fixed her flashing eyes on her husband's hands with their swollen veins, as he stood slowly rubbing them together.

"We will not say any more about that," she added, more calmly.

"I have given you perfect freedom to decide this question, and I am happy to see ...." Alekseï Aleksandrovitch began again.

"That my desires are in conformity with yours," finished Anna, quickly, exasperated to hear him speak so slowly, when she knew beforehand what he was going to say.

"Yes," he affirmed; "and the Princess Tverskaya shows very poor taste to meddle in family affairs, she of all others." ....

"I don't believe what they say about her," said Anna. "I only know that she loves me sincerely."

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch sighed, and was silent. Anna played nervously with the tassels of her khalat, and looked at him now and then, with that feeling of physical repulsion which she reproached herself for, without being able to overcome. All that she wished for at this moment was to be rid of his distasteful presence.