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.

“Well, let us begin.”

After the game Vronsky and Levin sat down at Gagin’s table, and at Stepan Arkadyevitch’s suggestion Levin took a hand in the game.

Vronsky sat down at the table, surrounded by friends, who were incessantly coming up to him.  Every now and then he went to the “infernal” to keep an eye on Yashvin.  Levin was enjoying a delightful sense of repose after the mental fatigue of the morning.  He was glad that all hostility was at an end with Vronsky, and the sense of peace, decorum, and comfort never left him.

When the game was over, Stepan Arkadyevitch took Levin’s arm.

“Well, let us go to Anna’s, then.  At once?  Eh?  She is at home.  I promised her long ago to bring you.  Where were you meaning to spend the evening?”