“The princess is in the garden; they will inform her immediately.  Would you be pleased to walk into the garden?” announced another footman in another room.

The position of uncertainty, of indecision, was still the same as at home—­worse, in fact, since it was impossible to take any step, impossible to see Vronsky, and she had to remain here among outsiders, in company so uncongenial to her present mood.  But she was wearing a dress that she knew suited her.  She was not alone; all around was that luxurious setting of idleness that she was used to, and she felt less wretched than at home.  She was not forced to think what she was to do.  Everything would be done of itself.  On meeting Betsy coming towards her in a white gown that struck her by its elegance, Anna smiled at her just as she always did.  Princess Tverskaya was walking with Tushkevitch and a young lady, a relation, who, to the great joy of her parents in the provinces, was spending the summer with the fashionable princess.

There was probably something unusual about Anna, for Betsy noticed it at once.

“I slept badly,” answered Anna, looking intently at the footman who came to meet them, and, as she supposed, brought Vronsky’s note.

“How glad I am you’ve come!” said Betsy.  “I’m tired, and was just longing to have some tea before they come.  You might go”—­ she turned to Tushkevitch—­“with Masha, and try the croquet ground over there where they’ve been cutting it.  We shall have time to talk a little over tea; we’ll have a cozy chat, eh?” she said in English to Anna, with a smile, pressing the hand with which she held a parasol.

“Yes, especially as I can’t stay very long with you.  I’m forced to go on to old Madame Vrede.  I’ve been promising to go for a century,” said Anna, to whom lying, alien as it was to her nature, had become not merely simple and natural in society, but a positive source of satisfaction.  Why she said this, which she had not thought of a second before, she could not have explained.  She had said it simply from the reflection that as Vronsky would not be here, she had better secure her own freedom, and try to see him somehow.  But why she had spoken of old Madame Vrede, whom she had to go and see, as she had to see many other people, she could not have explained; and yet, as it afterwards turned out, had she contrived the most cunning devices to meet Vronsky, she could have thought of nothing better.

“No.  I’m not going to let you go for anything,” answered Betsy, looking intently into Anna’s face.  “Really, if I were not fond of you, I should feel offended.  One would think you were afraid my society would compromise you.  Tea in the little dining room, please,” she said, half closing her eyes, as she always did when addressing the footman.

Taking the note from him, she read it.

“Alexey’s playing us false,” she said in French; “he writes that he can’t come,” she added in a tone as simple and natural as though it could never enter her head that Vronsky could mean anything more to Anna than a game of croquet.  Anna knew that Betsy knew everything, but, hearing how she spoke of Vronsky before her, she almost felt persuaded for a minute that she knew nothing.