's duties in a family. He supported this view by the fact
that no family can get on without women to help; that in every
family, poor or rich, there are and must be nurses, either
relations or hired.

"No," said Kitty, blushing, but looking at him all the more
boldly with her truthful eyes; "a girl may be so circumstanced
that she cannot live in the family without humiliation, while she
herself..."

At the hint he understood her.

"Oh, yes," he said. "Yes, yes, yes--you're right; you're right!"

And he saw all that Pestsov had been maintaining at dinner of the
liberty of woman, simply from getting a glimpse of the terror of
an old maid's existence and its humiliation in Kitty's heart; and
loving her, he felt that terror and humiliation, and at once gave
up his arguments.

A silence followed. She was still drawing with the chalk on the
table. Her eyes were shining with a soft light. Under the
influence of her mood he felt in all his being a continually
growing tension of happiness.

"Ah! I've scribbled all over the table!" she said, and, laying
down the chalk, she made a movement as though to get up.

"What! shall I be left alone--without her?" he thought with
horror, and he took the chalk. "Wait a minute," he said, sitting
down to the table. "I've long wanted to ask you one thing."

He looked straight into her caressing, though frightened eyes.

"Please, ask it."

"Here," he said; and he wrote the initial letters, _w, y, t, m, i,
c, n, b, d, t, m, n, o, t_. These letters meant, "When you told
me it could never be, did that mean never, or then?" There
seemed no likelihood that she could make out this complicated
sentence; but he looked at her as though his life depended on her
understanding the words. She glanced at him seriously, then
leaned her puckered brow on her hands and began to read. Once or
twice she stole a look at him, as though asking him, "Is it what
I think?"

"I understand," she said, flushing a little.

"What is this word?" he said, pointing to the n that stood for
_never_.

"It means _never_," she said; "but that's not true!"

He quickly rubbed out what he had written, gave her the chalk,
and stood up. She wrote, _t, i, c, n, a, d_.

Dolly was completely comforted in the depression caused by her
conversation with Alexey Alexandrovitch when she caught sight of
the two figures: Kitty with the chalk in her hand, with a shy and
happy smile looking upwards at Levin, and his h