What for? Because he, dear fellow, loved her, was in love with her. But there was no help for it, so it must be, so it would have to be.

 

"My God! shall I myself really have to say it to him?" she thought. "Can I tell him I don't love him? That will be a lie. What am I to say to him? That I love someone else? No, that's impossible. I'm going away, I'm going away."

 

She had reached the door, when she heard his step. "No! it's not honest. What have I to be afraid of? I have done nothing wrong. What is to be, will be! I'll tell the truth. And with him one can't be ill at ease. Here he is," she said to herself, seeing his powerful, shy figure, with his shining eyes fixed on her. She looked straight into his face, as thought imploring him to spare her, and gave her hand.

 

"It's not time yet; I think I'm too early," he said glancing round the empty drawing room. When he saw that his expectations were realized, that there was nothing to prevent him from speaking, his face became gloomy.

 

"Oh, no," said Kitty, and sat down at the table.

 

"But this was just what I wanted, to find you alone," be began, not sitting down, and not looking at her, so as not to lose courage.

 

"Mamma will be down directly. She was very much tired.... Yesterday..."

 

She talked on, not knowing what her lips were uttering, and not taking her supplicating and caressing eyes off him.

 

He glanced at her; she blushed, and ceased speaking.

 

"I told you I did not know whether I should be here long...that it depended on you..."

 

She dropped her head lower and lower, not knowing herself what answer she should make to what was coming.

 

"That it depended on you," he repeated. "I meant to say...I meant to say...I came for this...to be my wife!" he brought out, not knowing what he was saying; but feeling that the most terrible thing was said, he stopped short and looked at her...

 

She was breathing heavily, not looking at him. She was feeling ecstasy. Her soul was flooded with happiness. She had never anticipated that the utterance of love would produce such a powerful effect on her. But it lasted only an instant. She remembered Vronsky. She lifted her clear, truthful eyes, and seeing his desperate face, she answered hastily:

 

"That cannot be...forgive me."

 

A moment ago, and how close she had been to him, of what importance in his life! And how aloof and remote from him she had become now!

 

"It was bound to be so," he said, not looking at her.

 

He bowed, and was meaning to retreat.

 

Chapter 14

 

But at that very moment the princess came in. There was a look of horror on her face when she saw them alone, and their disturbed faces. Levin bowed to her, and said nothing. Kitty did not speak nor lift her eyes. "Thank God, she has refused him," thought the mother, and her face lighted up with the habitual smile with which she greeted her guests on Thursdays. She sat down and began questioning Levin about his life in the country. He sat down again, waiting for other visitors to arrive, in order to retreat unnoticed.

 

Five minutes later there came in a friend of Kitty's, married the preceding winter, Countess Nordston.

 

She was a thin, sallow, sickly, and nervous woman, with brilliant black eyes. She was fond of Kitty, and her affection for her showed itself, as the affection of married women for girls always does, in the desire to make a match for Kitty after her own ideal of married happiness; she wanted her to marry Vronsky. Levin she had often met at the Shtcherbatskys' early in the winter, and she had always disliked him. Her invariable and favorite pursuit, when they met, consisted in making fun of him.

 

"I do like it when he looks down at me from the height of his grandeur, or breaks off his learned conversation with me because I'm a fool, or is condescending to me.