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.

On reaching home Alexey Alexandrovitch went to his study, as he
usually did, seated himself in his low chair, opened a book on
the Papacy at the place where he had laid the paper-knife in it,
and read till one o'clock, just as he usually did. But from time
to time he rubbed his hig