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 the feeling that the mysterious bond that attached him to Kitty was closer than ever, so close, indeed, that he felt that he must do something. But what he ought to do or could do he could not imagine.

"How charming!" he thought, as he went to his rooms, feeling, as he always felt when he left the Shcherbatskys', a deep impression of purity and freshness, arising partly from the fact that he had not smoked all the evening, and a new sensation of tenderness caused by her love for him. "How charming that, without either of us saying anything, we understand each other so perfectly through this mute language of glances and tones, so that to-day more than ever before she told me that she loves me! And how lovely, natural, and, above all, confidential, she was! I feel that I myself am better, purer. I feel that I have a heart, and that there is something good in me. Those gentle, lovely eyes! When she said .... Well! what did she say? .... Nothing much, but it was pleasant for me, and pleasant for her."

And he reflected how he could best finish up the evening. He passed in review the places where he might go: "The 'club,' a hand of bezique and some champagne with Ignatof? No, not there. The Château des Fleurs, to find Oblonsky, songs, and the cancan? No, it's a bore. And this is just why I like the Shcherbatskys,—because I feel better for having been there. I'll go home!"

He went to his room at Dusseaux's, ordered supper, and then, having undressed, he had scarcely touched his head to the pillow before he was sound asleep.

CHAPTER XVII

next morning, about eleven o'clock, Vronsky went to the station to meet his mother on the Petersburg train; and the first person he saw on the grand staircase was Oblonsky, who was expecting his sister on the same train.