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"Kitty, what is it?" said Countess Nordston, stepping noiselessly

over the carpet towards her. "I don't understand it."

Kitty's lower lip began to quiver; she got up quickly.

"Kitty, you're not dancing the mazurka?"

"No, no," said Kitty in a voice shaking with tears.

"He asked her for the mazurka before me," said Countess Nordston,

knowing Kitty would understand who were "he" and "her." "She

said: 'Why, aren't you going to dance it with Princess

Shtcherbatskaya?'"

"Oh, I don't care!" answered Kitty.

No one but she herself understood her position; no one knew that

she had just refused the man whom perhaps she loved, and refused

him because she had put her faith in another.

Countess Nordston found Korsunsky, with whom she was to dance the

mazurka, and told him to ask Kitty.