“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in the room, even the Princess Myakaya and Betsy herself, looked several times in the direction of the two who had withdrawn from the general circle, as though that were a disturbing fact.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.

“You’ve said nothing, of course, and I ask nothing,” he was saying; “but you know that friendship’s not what I want:  that there’s only one happiness in life for me, that word that you dislike so...yes, love!...”

“Love,” she repeated slowly, in an inner voice, and suddenly, at the very instant she unhooked the lace, she added, “Why I don’t like the word is that it means too much to me, far more than you can understand,” and she glanced into his face. “Au revoir!”

She gave him her hand, and with her rapid, springy step she passed by the porter and vanished into the carriage.

Her glance, the touch of her hand, set him aflame.  He kissed the palm of his hand where she had touched it, and went home, happy in the sense that he had got nearer to the attainment of his aims that evening than during the last two months.

Chapter 8

Alexey Alexandrovitch had seen nothing striking or improper in the fact that his wife was sitting with Vronsky at a table apart, in eager conversation with him about something.  But he noticed that to the rest of the party this appeared something striking and improper, and for that reason it seemed to him too to be improper.  He made up his mind that he must speak of it to his wife.