n't love my daughter, that I love this
English girl, that it's unnatural. I should like to know what
life there is for me that could be natural!"

For an instant she had a clear vision of what she was doing, and
was horrified at how she had fallen away from her resolution.
But even though she knew it was her own ruin, she could not
restrain herself, could not keep herself from proving to him that
he was wrong, could not give way to him.

"I never said that; I said I did not sympathize with this sudden
passion."

"How is it, though you boast of your straightforwardness, you
don't tell the truth?"

"I never boast, and I never tell lies," he said slowly,
restraining his rising anger. "It's a great pity if you can't
respect..."

"Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should
be. And if you don't love me any more, it would be better and
more honest to say so."

"No, this is becoming unbearable!" cried Vronsky, getting up from
his chair; and stopping short, facing her, he said, speaking
deliberately: "What do you try my patience for?" looking as
though he might have said much more, but was restraining himself.
"It has limits."

"What do you mean by that?" she cried, looking with terror at the
undisguised hatred in his whole face, and especially in his
cruel, menacing eyes.

"I mean to say..." he was beginning, but he checked himself. "I
must ask what it is you want of me?"

"What can I want? All I can want is that you should not desert
me, as you think of doing," she said, understanding all he had
not uttered. "But that I don't want; that's secondary. I want
love, and there is none. So then all is over."

She turned towards the door.

"Stop! sto-op!" said Vronsky, with no change in the gloomy lines
of his brows, though he held her by the hand. "What is it all
about? I said that we must put off going for three days, and on
that you told me I was lying, that I was not an honorable man."

"Yes, and I repeat that the man who reproaches me with having
sacrificed everything for me," she said, recalling the words of a
still earlier quarrel, "that he's worse than a dishonorable man--
he's a heartless man."

"Oh, there are limits to endurance!" he cried, and hastily let go
her hand.

"He hates me, that's clear," she thought, and in silence, without
looking round, she walked with faltering steps out of the room.
"He loves another woman, that's even clearer," she said to
herself as she