"Prince, please come, we're ready," said one of his card party,
who had come to look for him, and the prince went off. Levin sat
down and listened, but recalling all the conversation of the
morning he felt all of a sudden fearfully bored. He got up
hurriedly, and went to look for Oblonsky and Turovtsin, with whom
it had been so pleasant.
Turovtsin was one of the circle drinking in the billiard room,
and Stepan Arkadyevitch was talking with Vronsky near the door at
the farther corner of the room.
"It's not that she's dull; but this undefined, this unsettled
position," Levin caught, and he was hurrying away, but Stepan
Arkadyevitch called to him.
"Levin," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and Levin noticed that his
eyes were not full of tears exactly, but moist, which always
happened when he had been drinking, or when he was touched. Just
now it was due to both causes. "Levin, don't go," he said, and
he warmly squeezed his arm above the elbow, obviously not at all
wishing to let him go.
"This is a true friend of mine--almost my greatest friend," he
said to Vronsky. "You have become even closer and dearer to me.
And I want you, and I know you ought, to be friends, and great
friends, because you're both splendid fellows."
"Well, there's nothing for us now but to kiss and be friends,"
Vronsky said, with good-natured playfulness, holding out his
hand.
Levin quickly took the offered hand, and pressed it warmly.
"I'm very, very glad," said Levin.
"Waiter, a bottle of champagne," said Stepan Arkadyevitch.
"And I'm very glad," said Vronsky.
But in spite of Stepan Arkadyevitch's desire, and their own
desire, they had nothing to talk about, and both felt it.
"Do you know, he has never met Anna?" Stepan Arkadyevitch said to
Vronsky. "And I want above everything to take him to see her.
Let us go, Levin!"
"Really?" said Vronsky. "She will be very glad to see you. I
should be going home at once," he added, "but I'm worried about
Yashvin, and I want to stay on till he finishes."
"Why, is he losing?"
"He keeps losing, and I'm the only friend that can restrain him."
"Well, what do you say to pyramids? Levin, will you play?
Capital!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Get the table ready," he
said to the marker.
"It has been ready a long while," answered the marker, who had
already set the balls in a triangle, and was knocking the red one
about for his own diversion.