" "Ah, he must tell you this story!" said Betsy, laughing, to a lady who came into her box.

" He has been making me laugh so.

" "Well, _bonne chance_!" she added, giving Vronsky one finger of the hand in which she held her fan, and with a shrug of her shoulders she twitched down the bodice of her gown that had worked up, so as to be duly naked as she moved forward towards the footlights into the light of the gas, and the sight of all eyes.

Vronsky drove to the French theater, where he really had to see the colonel of his regiment, who never missed a single performance there.

He wanted to see him, to report on the result of his mediation, which had occupied and amused him for the last three days.