She could not pluck up spirit to make any answer. She tried to begin, and all at once burst into tears, and rushed out of the room.

“See what comes of your jokes!” the princess pounced down on her husband. “You’re always...” she began a string of reproaches.

The prince listened to the princess’s scolding rather a long while without speaking, but his face was more and more frowning.

“She’s so much to be pitied, poor child, so much to be pitied, and you don’t feel how it hurts her to hear the slightest reference to the cause of it. Ah! to be so mistaken in people!” said the princess, and by the change in her tone both Dolly and the prince knew she was speaking of Vronsky. “I don’t know why there aren’t