at she was behaving unbecomingly, and
considered it his duty to tell her so. But it was very difficult
for him not to say more, to tell her nothing but that. He opened
his mouth to tell her she had behaved unbecomingly, but he could
not help saying something utterly different.

"What an inclination we all have, though, for these cruel
spectacles," he said. "I observe..."

"Eh? I don't understand," said Anna contemptuously.

He was offended, and at once began to say what he had meant to
say.

"I am obliged to tell you," he began.

"So now we are to have it out," she thought, and she felt
frightened.

"I am obliged to tell you that your behavior has been unbecoming
today," he said to her in French.

"In what way has my behavior been unbecoming?" she said aloud,
turning her head swiftly and looking him straight in the face,
not with the bright expression that seemed covering something,
but with a look of determination, under which she concealed with
difficulty the dismay she was feeling.

"Mind," he said, pointing to the open window opposite the
coachman.

He got up and pulled up the window.

"What did you consider unbecoming?" she repeated.

"The despair you were unable to conceal at the accident to one of
the riders."

He waited for her to answer, but she was silent, looking straight
before her.

"I have already begged you so to conduct yourself in society that
even malicious tongues can find nothing to say against you.
There was a time when I spoke of your inward attitude, but I am
not speaking of that now. Now I speak only of your external
attitude. You have behaved improperly, and I would wish it not
to occur again."

She did not hear half of what he was saying; she felt
panic-stricken before him, and was thinking whether it was true
that Vronsky was not killed. Was it of him they were speaking
when they said the rider was unhurt, but the horse had broken its
back? She merely smiled with a pretense of irony when he
finished, and made no reply, because she had not heard what he
said. Alexey Alexandrovitch had begun to speak boldly, but as he
realized plainly what he was speaking of, the dismay she was
feeling infected him too. He saw the smile, and a strange
misapprehension came over him.

"She is smiling at my suspicions. Yes, she will tell me directly
what she told me before; that there is no foundation for my
suspicions, that it's absurd."

At that moment, when the revelation of e