This playing with words, this hiding of a secret, had a great
fascination for Anna, as, indeed, it has for all women. And it
was not the necessity of concealment, not the aim with which the
concealment was contrived, but the process of concealment itself
which attracted her.
"I can't be more Catholic than the Pope," she said. "Stremov
and Liza Merkalova, why, they're the cream of the cream of
society. Besides, they're received everywhere, and _I_"--she
laid special stress on the I--"have never been strict and
intolerant. It's simply that I haven't the time."
"No; you don't care, perhaps, to meet Stremov? Let him and
Alexey Alexandrovitch tilt at each other in the committee--
that's no affair of ours. But in the world, he's the most
amiable man I know, and a devoted croquet player. You shall see.
And, in spite of his absurd position as Liza's lovesick swain at
his age, you ought to see how he carries off the absurd position.
He's very nice. Sappho Shtoltz you don't know? Oh, that's a new
type, quite new."
Betsy said all this, and, at the same time, from her
good-humored, shrewd glance, Anna felt that she partly guessed
her plight, and was hatching something for her benefit. They
were in the little boudoir.
"I must write to Alexey though," and Betsy sat down to the
table, scribbled a few lines, and put the note in an envelope.
"I'm telling him to come to dinner. I've one lady extra to
dinner with me, and no man to take her in. Look what I've said,
will that persuade him? Excuse me, I must leave you for a
minute. Would you seal it up, please, and send it off?" she said
from the door; "I have to give some directions."
Without a moment's thought, Anna sat down to the table with
Betsy's letter, and, without reading it, wrote below: "It's
essential for me to see you. Come to the Vrede garden. I shall
be there at six o'clock." She sealed it up, and, Betsy coming
back, in her presence handed the note to be taken.
At tea, which was brought them on a little tea-table in the cool
little drawing room, the cozy chat promised by Princess Tverskaya
before the arrival of her visitors really did come off between
the two women. They criticized the people they were expecting,
and the conversation fell upon Liza Merkalova.
"She's very sweet, and I always liked her," said Anna.
"You ought to like her. She raves about you. Yesterday she came
up to me after the races and was in despair at not finding you.
She says you're a real heroine of romance, and that if she were a
man she would do all sorts of mad things for your sake. Stremov
says she does that as it is."