Anna Karenina - Part 3

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."