“No, I’ve not noticed it, maman ,” said Kitty, flushing hotly.
“Is it long since you went to see them?”
“We’re meaning to make an expedition to the mountains tomorrow,” answered Kitty.
“Well, you can go,” answered the princess, gazing at her daughter’s embarrassed face and trying to guess the cause of her embarrassment.
That day Varenka came to dinner and told them that Anna Pavlovna had changed her mind and given up the expedition for the morrow. And the princess noticed again that Kitty reddened.
“Kitty, haven’t you had some misunderstanding with the Petrovs?” said the princess, when they were left alone. “Why has she given up sending the children and coming to see us?”
Kitty answered that nothing had happened between them, and that she could not tell why Anna Pavlovna seemed displeased with her. Kitty answered perfectly truly. She did not know the reason Anna Pavlovna had changed to her, but she guessed it. She guessed at something which she could not tell her mother, which she did not put into words to herself. It was one of those things which one knows but which one can never speak of even to oneself, so terrible and shameful would it be to be mistaken.
Again and again she went over in her memory all her relations with the family. She remembered the simple delight expressed on the round, good-humored face of Anna Pavlovna at their meetings; she remembered their secret confabulations about the invalid, their plots to draw him away from the work which was forbidden him, and to get him out-of-doors; the devotion of the youngest boy, who used to call her “my Kitty,” and would not go to bed without her. How nice it all was! Then she