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"How good you are! how good you are!" cried Kitty, and stopping

her, she kissed her. "If I could only be even a little like you!"

"Why should you be like anyone? You're nice as you are," said

Varenka, smiling her gentle, weary smile.

"No, I'm not nice at all. Come, tell me.... Stop a minute, let's

sit down," said Kitty, making her sit down again beside her.

"Tell me, isn't it humiliating to think that a man has disdained

your love, that he hasn't cared for it?..."

"But he didn't disdain it; I believe he cared for me, but he was

a dutiful son...."

"Yes, but if it hadn't been on account of his mother, if it had

been his own doing?..." said Kitty, feeling she was giving away

her secret, and that her face, burning with the flush of shame,

had betrayed her already.

"In that case he would have done wrong, and I should not have

regretted him," answered Varenka, evidently realizing that they

were now talking not of her, but of Kitty.