When Vronsky returned home, Anna was not yet home.  Soon after he had left, some lady, so they told him, had come to see her, and she had gone out with her.  That she had gone out without leaving word where she was going, that she had not yet come back, and that all the morning she had been going about somewhere without a word to him—­all this, together with the strange look of excitement in her face in the morning, and the recollection of the hostile tone with which she had before Yashvin almost snatched her son’s photographs out of his hands, made him serious.  He decided he absolutely must speak openly with her.  And he waited for her in her drawing room.  But Anna did not return alone, but brought with her her old unmarried aunt, Princess Oblonskaya.  This was the lady who had come in the morning, and with whom Anna had gone out shopping.  Anna appeared not to notice Vronsky’s worried and inquiring expression, and began a lively account of her morning’s shopping.  He saw that there was something working within her; in her flashing eyes, when they rested for a moment on him, there was an intense concentration, and in her words and movements there was that nervous rapidity and grace which, during the early period of their intimacy, had so fascinated him, but which now so disturbed and alarmed him.

The dinner was laid for four.  All were gathered together and about to go into the little dining room when Tushkevitch made his appearance with a message from Princess Betsy.  Princess Betsy begged her to excuse her not having come to say good-bye; she had been indisposed, but begged Anna to come to her between half-past six and nine o’clock.  Vronsky glanced at Anna at the precise limit of time, so suggestive of steps having been taken that she should meet no one; but Anna appeared not to notice it.

“Very sorry that I can’t come just between half-past six and nine,” she said with a faint smile.

“The princess will be very sorry.”

“And so am I.”

“You’re going, no doubt, to hear Patti?” said Tushkevitch.

“Patti?  You suggest the idea to me.  I would go if it were possible to get a box.”

“I can get one,” Tushkevitch offered his services.

“I should be very, very grateful to you,” said Anna.  “But won’t you dine with us?”

Vronsky gave a hardly perceptible shrug.  He was at a complete loss to understand what Anna was about.  What had she brought the old Princess Oblonskaya home for, what had she made Tushkevitch stay to dinner for, and, most amazing of all, why was she sending him for a box?  Could she possibly think in her position of going to Patti’s benefit, where all the circle of her acquaintances would be?  He looked at her with serious eyes, but she responded with that defiant, half-mirthful, half-desperate look, the meaning of which he could not comprehend.  At dinner Anna was in aggressively high spirits—­she almost flirted both with Tushkevitch and with Yashvin.