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"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 laws against such base, dishonorable people."