He waited for her to answer, but she was silent, looking straight
before her.
"I have already begged you so to conduct yourself in society that
even malicious tongues can find nothing to say against you.
There was a time when I spoke of your inward attitude, but I am
not speaking of that now. Now I speak only of your external
attitude. You have behaved improperly, and I would wish it not
to occur again."
She did not hear half of what he was saying; she felt
panic-stricken before him, and was thinking whether it was true
that Vronsky was not killed. Was it of him they were speaking
when they said the rider was unhurt, but the horse had broken its
back? She merely smiled with a pretense of irony when he
finished, and made no reply, because she had not heard what he
said. Alexey Alexandrovitch had begun to speak boldly, but as he
realized plainly what he was speaking of, the dismay she was
feeling infected him too. He saw the smile, and a strange
misapprehension came over him.
"She is smiling at my suspicions. Yes, she will tell me directly
what she told me before; that there is no foundation for my
suspicions, that it's absurd."
At that moment, when the revelation of everything was hanging
over him, there was nothing he expected so much as that she would
answer mockingly as before that his suspicions were absurd and
utterly groundless. So terrible to him was what he knew that now
he was ready to believe anything. But the expression of her
face, scared and gloomy, did not now promise even deception.
"Possibly I was mistaken," said he. "If so, I beg your pardon."
"No, you were not mistaken," she said deliberately, looking
desperately into his cold face. "You were not mistaken. I was,
and I could not help being in despair. I hear you, but I am
thinking of him. I love him, I am his mistress; I can't bear
you; I'm afraid of you, and I hate you.... You can do what you
like to me."
And dropping back into the corner of the carriage, she broke into
sobs, hiding her face in her hands. Alexey Alexandrovitch did
not stir, and kept looking straight before him. But his whole
face suddenly bore the solemn rigidity of the dead, and his
expression did not change during the whole time of the drive
home. On reaching the house he turned his head to her, still
with the same expression.
"Very well! But I expect a strict observance of the external
forms of propriety till such time"--his voice shook--"as I may
take measures to secure my honor and communicate them to you."