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'I consent, count, and am ready to overlook it; but you perceive

that my wife-my wife's a respectable woman-has been exposed to

the persecution, and insults, and effrontery of young upstarts,

scoundrels....' And you must understand, the young upstarts are

present all the while, and I have to keep the peace between them.

Again I call out all my diplomacy, and again as soon as the thing

was about at an end, our friend the government clerk gets hot and

red, and his sausages stand on end with wrath, and once more I

launch out into diplomatic wiles."

"Ah, he must tell you this story!" said Betsy, laughing, to a

lady who came into her box. "He has been making me laugh so."

"Well, bonne chance!" she added, giving Vronsky one finger of the

hand in which she held her fan, and with a shrug of her shoulders

she twitched down the bodice of her gown that had worked up, so

as to be duly naked as she moved forward towards the footlights

into the light of the gas, and the sight of all eyes.