“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.

Vronsky drove to the French theater, where he really had to see the colonel of his regiment, who never missed a single performance there.  He wanted to see him, to report on the result of his mediation, which had occupied and amused him for the last three days.  Petritsky, whom he liked, was implicated in the affair, and the other culprit was a capital fellow and first-rate comrade, who had lately joined the regiment, the young Prince Kedrov.  And what was most important, the interests of the regiment were involved in it too.

Both the young men were in Vronsky’s company.  The colonel of the regiment was waited upon by the government clerk, Venden, with a complaint against his officers, who had insulted his wife.  His young wife, so Venden told the story—­he had been married half a year—­was at church with her mother, and suddenly overcome by indisposition, arising from her interesting condition, she could not remain standing, she drove home in the first sledge, a smart-looking one, she came across.  On the spot the officers set off in pursuit of her; she was alarmed, and feeling still more unwell, ran up the staircase home.  Venden himself, on returning from his office, heard a ring at their bell and voices, went out, and seeing the intoxicated officers with a letter, he had turned them out.  He asked for exemplary punishment.

“Yes, it’s all very well,” said the colonel to Vronsky, whom he had invited to come and see him.  “Petritsky’s becoming impossible.  Not a week goes by without some scandal.  This government clerk won’t let it drop, he’ll go on with the thing.”

Vronsky saw all the thanklessness of the business, and that there could be no question of a duel in it, that everything must be done to soften the government clerk, and hush the matter up.  The colonel had called in Vronsky just because he knew him to be an honorable and intelligent man, and, more than all, a man who cared for the honor of the regiment.  They talked it over, and decided that Petritsky and Kedrov must go with Vronsky to Venden’s to apologize.  The colonel and Vronsky were both fully aware that Vronsky’s name and rank would be sure to contribute greatly to the softening of the injured husband’s feelings.

And these two influences were not in fact without effect; though the result remained, as Vronsky had described, uncertain.