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It was as though her nature were so brimming over with something

that against her will it showed itself now in the flash of her

eyes, and now in her smile. Deliberately she shrouded the light

in her eyes, but it shone against her will in the faintly

perceptible smile.

Vronsky stepped into the carriage. His mother, a dried-up old

lady with black eyes and ringlets, screwed up her eyes, scanning

her son, and smiled slightly with her thin lips. Getting up from

the seat and handing her maid a bag, she gave her little wrinkled

hand to her son to kiss, and lifting his head from her hand,

kissed him on the cheek.

"You got my telegram? Quite well? Thank God."

"You had a good journey?" said her son, sitting down beside her,

and involuntarily listening to a woman's voice outside the door.

He knew it was the voice of the lady he had met at the door.

"All the same I don't agree with you," said the lady's voice.

"It's the Petersburg view, madame."

"Not Petersburg, but simply feminine," she responded.