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The Countess Lidia Ivanovna was a friend of her husband's, and

the center of that one of the coteries of the Petersburg world

with which Anna was, through her husband, in the closest

relations.

"But you know I wrote to her?"

"Still she'll want to hear details. Go and see her, if you're not

too tired, my dear. Well, Kondraty will take you in the carriage,

while I go to my committee. I shall not be alone at dinner

again," Alexey Alexandrovitch went on, no longer in a sarcastic

tone. "You wouldn't believe how I've missed...." And with a long

pressure of her hand and a meaning smile, he put her in her

carriage.

Chapter 32

The first person to meet Anna at home was her son. He dashed down

the stairs to her, in spite of the governess's call, and with

desperate joy shrieked: "Mother! mother!" Running up to her, he

hung on her neck.

"I told you it was mother!" he shouted to the governess. "I

knew!"