Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/990

 "Little hope; but I shall do everything possible and impossible."

"I told you yesterday that it was absolutely immaterial to me when I received the divorce, or whether I get it at all," said she, flushing, "so it is perfectly useless to hide anything from me. In the same way, he can hide from me his correspondence with women," thought she.

"Yashvin wanted to come this morning with Voïtof," said Vronsky. "It seems that he has been gambling again, and has won from Pyebtsof all he has and more than he can pay.... about sixty thousand rubles."

"No," said she, vexed because by this change in the conversation he so evidently insinuated that she was vexed. "Why do you think that this news interests me so much that you must hide it from me? I told you that I did not want to think about it, and I should wish that you had as little interest in it as I."

"It interests me because I like clearness."

"Clearness! But in love, not in mere outside show," she said, getting more and more angry, not at his words, but at the tone of cool calmness in which he spoke. "Why do you want a divorce?"

"Bozhe moï! Always 'love,'" thought Vronsky, frowning. "You know very well why; it is for your sake and for the children we may have."

"There will not be any more children."

"I am sorry for that."

"You feel the need of it, because of the children; but don't you have some thought of me?" said she, forgetting that he had just said "for your sake and the children's."

The question of the possibility of having children had been long vexatious and trying to her. She took his desire to have children as a proof of indifference toward her beauty.

"Akh! I said for your sake .... more than all for your sake; for I am convinced that your irritability comes largely from the uncertainty of your position," he answered, scowling with annoyance.

"Yes, now he has ceased to pretend, and all his cold