ing him straight in the eyes, no longer hiding her feelings under a mask of gayety, but putting on a bold front, under which, with difficulty, she hid her fears.
"Be careful," said he, pointing to the open window behind the coachman's back.
He leaned forward and raised the pane.
"What impropriety did you remark?" she asked again.
"The despair which you took no pains to conceal when one of the riders was thrown."
He awaited her answer; but she said nothing, and looked straight ahead.
"I have already requested you so to behave when in society that evil tongues cannot find anything to say against you. There was a time when I spoke of your inner feelings; I now say nothing about them. Now I speak only of outward appearances. You have behaved improperly, and I would ask you not to let this happen again."
She did not hear half of his words; she felt overwhelmed with fear; and she thought only of Vronsky, and whether he was killed. Was it he who was meant when they said the rider was safe but the horse had broken her back?
When Alekseï Aleksandrovitch ceased speaking, she looked at him with an ironical smile, and answered not a word, because she had not noticed what he said. At first he had spoken boldly; but as he saw clearly what he was speaking about, the terror which possessed her seized him also. He noticed that smile of hers, and it led him into a strange mistake.
"She is amused at my suspicions! She is going to tell me now what she once before said, that there is no foundation for them, that this is absurd."
Now when the discovery of the whole thing hung over him, he desired nothing so much as that she should answer derisively as she had done before, that his suspicions were ridiculous and had no foundation. What he now knew was so terrible to him that he was ready to believe anything that she might say. But the ex-
