Kitty felt how distasteful her father’s warmth was to Levin after what had happened.  She saw, too, how coldly her father responded at last to Vronsky’s bow, and how Vronsky looked with amiable perplexity at her father, as though trying and failing to understand how and why anyone could be hostilely disposed towards him, and she flushed.

“Prince, let us have Konstantin Dmitrievitch,” said Countess Nordston; “we want to try an experiment.”

“What experiment?  Table-turning?  Well, you must excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but to my mind it is better fun to play the ring game,” said the old prince, looking at Vronsky, and guessing that it had been his suggestion.  “There’s some sense in that, anyway.”

Vronsky looked wonderingly at the prince with his resolute eyes, and, with a faint smile, began immediately talking to Countess Nordston of the great ball that was to come off next week.

“I hope you will be there?” he said to Kitty.  As soon as the old prince turned away from him, Levin went out unnoticed, and the last impression he carried away with him of that evening was the smiling, happy face of Kitty answering Vronsky’s inquiry about the ball.

Chapter 15

At the end of the evening Kitty told her mother of her conversation with Levin, and in spite of all the pity she felt for Levin, she was glad at the thought that she had received an offer.  She had no doubt that she had acted rightly.  But after she had gone to bed, for a long while she could not sleep.  One impression pursued her relentlessly.  It was Levin’s face, with his scowling brows, and his kind eyes looking out in dark dejection below them, as he stood listening to her father, and glancing at her and at Vronsky.  And she felt so sorry for him that tears came into her eyes.  But immediately she thought of the man for whom she had given him up.  She vividly recalled his manly, resolute face, his noble self-possession, and the good nature conspicuous in everything towards everyone.  She remembered the love for her of the man she loved, and once more all was gladness in her soul, and she lay on the pillow, smiling with happiness.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry; but what could I do?  It’s not my fault,” she said to herself; but an inner voice told her something else.  Whether she felt remorse at having won Levin’s love, or at having refused him, she did not know.  But her happiness was poisoned by doubts.  “Lord, have pity on us; Lord, have pity on us; Lord, have pity on us!” she repeated to herself, till she fell asleep.

Meanwhile there took place below, in the prince’s little library, one of the scenes so often repeated between the parents on account of their favorite daughter.

“What?  I’ll tell you what!” shouted the prince, waving his arms, and at once wrapping his squirrel-lined dressing-gown round him again.  “That you’ve no pride, no dignity; that you’re disgracing, ruining your daughter by this vulgar, stupid match-making!”