“Even after marriage?” said the ambassador’s wife playfully.

“ ‘It’s never too late to mend.’ ” The attaché repeated the English proverb.

“Just so,” Betsy agreed; “one must make mistakes and correct them. What do you think about it?” she turned to Anna, who, with a faintly perceptible resolute smile on her lips, was listening in silence to the conversation.

“I think,” said Anna, playing with the glove she had taken off, “I think⁠ ⁠… of so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.”

Vronsky was gazing at Anna, and with a fainting heart waiting for what she would say. He sighed as after a danger escaped when she uttered these words.

Anna suddenly turned to him.

“Oh, I have had a letter from Moscow. They write me that Kitty Shtcherbatskaya’s very ill.”