`But what is it? I don't know.'

`What? You haven't heard?'

`You know I should be the last person to hear of it.'

`There isn't a more spiteful creature than that Madame Kartassova!'

`But what did she do?'

`My husband told me.... She has insulted Madame Karenina. Her husband began talking to her across the box, and Madame Kartassova made a scene. She said something aloud, they say, something insulting, and went away.'

`Count, your maman is asking for you,' said the young Princess Sorokina, peeping out of the door of the box.

`I've been expecting you all the while,' said his mother, smiling sarcastically. `You were nowhere to be seen.'

Her son saw that she could not suppress a smile of delight.

`Good evening, maman. I have come to you,' he said coldly.

`Why aren't you going to faire la cour à Madame Karenina?' she went on, when Princess Sorokina had moved away. `Elle fait sensation. On oublie la Patti pour elle.'

`Maman, I have asked you not to say anything to me of that,' he answered, scowling.

`I'm only saying what everyone's saying.'

Vronsky made no reply, and saying a few words to Princess Sorokina, he went away. At the door he met his brother.

`Ah, Alexei!' said his brother. `How disgusting! Idiot of a woman, nothing else.... I wanted to go straight to her. Let's go together.'

Vronsky did not hear him. With rapid steps he went downstairs; he felt that he must do something, but he did not know what. Anger with her for having put herself and him in such a false position, together with pity for her suffering, filled his heart. He went down, and made straight for Anna's box. At her box stood Stremov, talking to her.

`There are no more tenors. Le moule en est brise!'

Vronsky bowed to her and stopped to greet Stremov.

`You came in late, I think, and have missed the best song,' Anna said to Vronsky, glancing ironically, he thought, at him.

`I am a poor judge of music,' he said, looking sternly at her.

`Like Prince Iashvin,' she said smiling, `who considers that Patti sings too loud. - Thank you,' she said, her little hand in its long glove taking the playbill Vronsky picked up, and suddenly at that instant her lovely face quivered. She got up and went into the interior of the box.

Noticing in the next act that her box was empty, Vronsky, rousing many an indignant `Hush!' in the silent audience, went out in the middle of a solo and drove home.