“Must decide, and I have decided,” she said, and she would have gone away, but at that moment Yashvin walked into the room.  Anna greeted him and remained.

Why, when there was a tempest in her soul, and she felt she was standing at a turning point in her life, which might have fearful consequences—­why, at that minute, she had to keep up appearances before an outsider, who sooner or later must know it all—­she did not know.  But at once quelling the storm within her, she sat down and began talking to their guest.

“Well, how are you getting on?  Has your debt been paid you?” she asked Yashvin.

“Oh, pretty fair; I fancy I shan’t get it all, but I shall get a good half.  And when are you off?” said Yashvin, looking at Vronsky, and unmistakably guessing at a quarrel.

“The day after tomorrow, I think,” said Vronsky.

“You’ve been meaning to go so long, though.”

“But now it’s quite decided,” said Anna, looking Vronsky straight in the face with a look which told him not to dream of the possibility of reconciliation.

“Don’t you feel sorry for that unlucky Pyevtsov?” she went on, talking to Yashvin.

“I’ve never asked myself the question, Anna Arkadyevna, whether I’m sorry for him or not.  You see, all my fortune’s here”—­he touched his breast pocket—­“and just now I’m a wealthy man.  But today I’m going to the club, and I may come out a beggar.  You see, whoever sits down to play with me—­he wants to leave me without a shirt to my back, and so do I him.  And so we fight it out, and that’s the pleasure of it.”

“Well, but suppose you were married,” said Anna, “how would it be for your wife?”

Yashvin laughed.

“That’s why I’m not married, and never mean to be.”

“And Helsingfors?” said Vronsky, entering into the conversation and glancing at Anna’s smiling face.  Meeting his eyes, Anna’s face instantly took a coldly severe expression as though she were saying to him:  “It’s not forgotten.  It’s all the same.”

“Were you really in love?” she said to Yashvin.

“Oh heavens! ever so many times!  But you see, some men can play but only so that they can always lay down their cards when the hour of a rendezvous comes, while I can take up love, but only so as not to be late for my cards in the evening.  That’s how I manage things.”

“No, I didn’t mean that, but the real thing.”  She would have said Helsingfors, but would not repeat the word used by Vronsky.

Voytov, who was buying the horse, came in.  Anna got up and went out of the room.

Before leaving the house, Vronsky went into her room.  She would have pretended to be looking for something on the table, but ashamed of making a pretense, she looked straight in his face with cold eyes.

“What do you want?” she asked in French.

“To get the guarantee for Gambetta, I’ve sold him,” he said, in a tone which said more clearly than words, “I’ve no time for discussing things, and it would lead to nothing.”