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"I am very glad it gives you pleasure," Varenka answered simply.

Kitty looked with pride at her friend. She was enchanted by her

talent, and her voice, and her face, but most of all by her

manner, by the way Varenka obviously thought nothing of her

singing and was quite unmoved by their praises. She seemed only

to be asking: "Am I to sing again, or is that enough?"

"If it had been I," thought Kitty, "how proud I should have been!

How delighted I should have been to see that crowd under the

windows! But she's utterly unmoved by it. Her only motive is to

avoid refusing and to please mamma. What is there in her? What is

it gives her the power to look down on everything, to be calm

independently of everything? How I should like to know it and to

learn it of her!" thought Kitty, gazing into her serene face. The

princess asked Varenka to sing again, and Varenka sang another

song, also smoothly, distinctly, and well, standing erect at the

piano and beating time on it with her thin, dark-skinned hand.