"Evil tongues say so, my dear; and your friend Varenka ought to see her as she is. Oh, these invalid ladies!"
"Oh, no, papa! I assure you, Varenka adores her," cried Kitty, eagerly; "and besides, she does so much good! Ask any one you please. Every one knows her and Aline Stahl."
"Maybe," replied her father, pressing her arm gently; "but it would be better when people do such things that no one should know about it."
Kitty was silent, not because she had nothing to say, but she was unwilling to reveal her inmost thoughts even to her father.
There was one strange thing, however: decided though she was not to unbosom herself to her father, not to let him penetrate into the sanctuary of her reflections, she nevertheless was conscious that her ideal of holiness, as seen in Madame Stahl, which she had for a whole month carried in her soul, had irrevocably disappeared, as a face seen in a garment thrown down by chance disappears when one really sees how the garment is lying. She retained only the image of a lame woman who, because she was deformed, stayed in bed, and who tormented the patient Varenka because she did not arrange her plaid to suit her. And it became impossible for her imagination to bring back to her the remembrance of the former Madame Stahl.
CHAPTER XXXV
The prince's gayety and good humor were contagious; his household and acquaintances, and even their German landlord, felt it.
When he came in with Kitty, from the springs, the prince invited the colonel, Marya Yevgenyevna and her daughter, and Varenka, to luncheon, and had the table and chairs brought out under the chestnut trees in the garden, and there the guests were served. The landlord and his domestics were filled with zeal under the influ-
