"We've been talking too much," said Betsy. "I feel it's
selfishness on my part, and I am going away."
She got up, but Anna, suddenly flushing, quickly caught at her
hand.
"No, wait a minute, please. I must tell you...no, you." she
turned to Alexey Alexandrovitch, and her neck and brow were
suffused with crimson. "I won't and can't keep anything secret
from you," she said.
Alexey Alexandrovitch cracked his fingers and bowed his head.
"Betsy's been telling me that Count Vronsky wants to come here to
say good-bye before his departure for Tashkend." She did not
look at her husband, and was evidently in haste to have
everything out, however hard it might be for her. "I told her I
could not receive him."
"You said, my dear, that it would depend on Alexey
Alexandrovitch," Betsy corrected her.
"Oh, no, I can't receive him; and what object would there...."
She stopped suddenly, and glanced inquiringly at her husband (he
did not look at her). "In short, I don't wish it...."
Alexey Alexandrovitch advanced and would have taken her hand.
Her first impulse was to jerk back her hand from the damp hand
with big swollen veins that sought hers, but with an obvious
effort to control herself she pressed his hand.
"I am very grateful to you for your confidence, but..." he said,
feeling with confusion and annoyance that what he could decide
easily and clearly by himself, he could not discuss before
Princess Tverskaya, who to him stood for the incarnation of that
brute force which would inevitably control him in the life he led
in the eyes of the world, and hinder him from giving way to his
feeling of love and forgiveness. He stopped short, looking at
Princess Tverskaya.
"Well, good-bye, my darling," said Betsy, getting up. She kissed
Anna, and went out. Alexey Alexandrovitch escorted her out.
"Alexey Alexandrovitch! I know you are a truly magnanimous man,"
said Betsy, stopping in the little drawing-room, and with special
warmth shaking hands with him once more. "I am an outsider, but
I so love her and respect you that I venture to advise. Receive
him. Alexey Vronsky is the soul of honor, and he is going away
to Tashkend."
"Thank you, princess, for your sympathy and advice. But the
question of whether my wife can or cannot see anyone she must
decide herself."
He said this from habit, lifting his brows with dignity, and
reflected immediately that whatever his words might be, there
could be no dignity in his position. And he saw this by the
suppressed, malicious, and ironical smile with which Betsy
glanced at him after this phrase.