Page 650 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

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

649 of 1759