While still outside his own door, as he rang, he heard masculine laughter, the lisp of a feminine voice, and Petritsky's voice.

" If that's one of the villains, don't let him in!" Vronsky told the servant not to announce him, and slipped quietly into the first room.

Baroness Shilton, a friend of Petritsky's, with a rosy little face and flaxen hair, resplendent in a lilac satin gown, and filling the whole room, like a canary, with her Parisian chatter, sat at the round table making coffee.

Petritsky, in his overcoat, and the cavalry captain Kamerovsky, in full uniform, probably just come from duty, were sitting each side of her.

"Bravo! Vronsky!" shouted Petritsky, jumping up, scraping his chair.