"Why should n't I have thought so? If I were a man I could never have loved any one else after knowing you," said Kitty. "What I cannot conceive is, that he was able to forget you, and make you unhappy for the sake of obeying his mother. He could n't have had any heart."
"Oh, no, he was an excellent man; and I am not unhappy; on the contrary, I am very happy. .... Well, shall we sing anymore this evening?" she added, starting to go toward the house.
"How good you are! how good you are!" cried Kitty, and stopping her, she kissed her, "If I could only be a bit like you!"
"Why should you resemble any one else besides yourself? You are a good girl as you are," said Varenka, with her sweet and melancholy smile.
"No, I am not good at all. Now, tell me.... Stay, stay; let us sit down a little while," said Kitty, drawing her down to a settee near by. "Tell me how it can be other than a pain to think of a man who has scorned your love, who has jilted you...."
'But no, he did not scorn it at all; I am sure that he loved me. But he was a dutiful son, and...."
"Yes, but suppose it had not been for his mother's sake, but simply of his own free will," said Kitty, feeling that she was betraying her secret, and her face, glowing red with mortification, convicted her.
"Then he would not have behaved honorably, and I should not mourn for him," replied Varenka, perceiving that the supposition concerned, not herself, but Kitty.
"But the insult!" cried Kitty. "One cannot forget the insult. It is impossible," said she, remembering her own look when the music stopped at the last ball.
"Whose insult? You did n't act badly?"
"Worse than badly,—shamefully!"
Varenka shook her head, and laid her hand on Kitty's.
"Well, but why shamefully?" she asked. "You surely did not tell a man who showed indifference to you that you loved him?"
"Certainly not; I never uttered a word. But he
