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 herself, glanced more than once at them sitting apart from the general company, as if it disturbed them. Only Alekseï Aleksandrovitch never once looked in their direction, and was not diverted from the interesting conversation on which he had started.

Betsy, perceiving the disagreeable impression that all felt, substituted some one else in her place to listen to Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, and crossed over to Anna.

"I always admire your husband's clear and explicit language," she said. "The most transcendental thoughts seem within my reach when he speaks."

"Oh, yes!" said Anna, with a radiant smile of joy, and not understanding a word that Betsy had said. Then she went over to the large table, and joined in the general conversation.

After he had stayed half an hour Alekseï Aleksandrovitch spoke to his wife and proposed to her that they should go home together; but she answered, without looking at him, that she wished to remain to supper. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch took leave of the company and departed.

Madame Karenina's coachman, a portly old Tatar, in his lacquered leather coat, was having some difficulty in restraining his left-hand gray, which was excited with the cold. A lackey stood holding open the carriage door. The Swiss was standing ready to open the outer door; Anna Arkadyevna was listening with ecstasy to what Vronsky whispered, while she was freeing, with nervous fingers, the lace of her sleeve, which had caught on the hook of her fur cloak.

"You have said nothing, let us admit, and I make no claim," Vronsky was saying, as he accompanied her down, "but you know that it is not friendship that I ask for; for me, the only possible happiness of my life is contained in that word that you do not like .... love."

"Love .... " she repeated slowly, as if she had spoken to herself; then suddenly, as she disentangled her lace, she said, "I do not like this word, because it means too