"I don't want to drive you away."

"Only don't change anything, leave everything as it is," he said

in a shaky voice. "Here's your husband."

At that instant Alexey Alexandrovitch did in fact walk into the

room with his calm, awkward gait.

Glancing at his wife and Vronsky, he went up to the lady of the

house, and sitting down for a cup of tea, began talking in his

deliberate, always audible voice, in his habitual tone of banter,

ridiculing someone.

"Your Rambouillet is in full conclave," he said, looking round at

all the party; "the graces and the muses."

But Princess Betsy could not endure that tone of his--

"sneering," as she called it, using the English word, and like a

skillful hostess she at once brought him into a serious

conversation on the subject of universal conscription. Alexey

Alexandrovitch was immediately interested in the subject, and

began seriously defending the new imperial decree against

Princess Betsy, who had attacked it.

Vronsky and Anna still sat at the little table.

"This is getting indecorous," whispered one lady, with an

expressive glance at Madame Karenina, Vronsky, and her husband.

"What did I tell you?" said Anna's friend.

But not only those ladies, almost everyone in the room, even the

Princess Myakaya and Betsy herself, looked several times in the

direction of the two who had withdrawn from the general circle,

as though that were a disturbing fact. Alexey Alexandrovitch was

the only person who did not once look in that direction, and was

not diverted from the interesting discussion he had entered upon.

Noticing the disagreeable impression that was being made on

everyone, Princess Betsy slipped someone else into her place to

listen to Alexey Alexandrovitch, and went up to Anna.

"I'm always amazed at the clearness and precision of your

husband's language," she said. "The most transcendental ideas

seem to be within my grasp when he's speaking."

"Oh, yes!" said Anna, radiant with a smile of happiness, and not

understanding a word of what Betsy had said. She crossed over to

the big table and took part in the general conversation.

Alexey Alexandrovitch, after staying half an hour, went up to his

wife and suggested that they should go home together. But she

answered, not looking at him, that she was staying to supper.

Alexey Alexandrovitch made his bows and withdrew.

The fat old Tatar, Madame Karenina's coachman, was with

difficulty holding one of her pair of grays, chilled with the

cold and rearing at the entrance. A footman stood opening the

carriage door. The hall porter stood holding open the great door

of the house. Anna Arkadyevna, with her quick little hand, was

unfastening the lace of her sleeve, caught in the hook of her fur

cloak, and with bent head listening to the words Vronsky murmured

as he escorted her down.




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