Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/729

 "I am already late. Go ahead, I will overtake you," he shouted to Yashvin.

She took his hand, and, without removing her eyes from him, tried to find something to say to detain him.

"Wait; I want to ask you something," and she pressed Vronsky's hand against her cheek. "Well! did I do wrong to invite him to dinner?"

"You did quite right," he replied, with a calm smile which showed his solid teeth, and he kissed her hand.

"Alekseï, do you feel changed toward me?" she asked, pressing his hand between her own. "Alekseï, I am tired of staying here. When shall we go away?"

"Soon, very soon. You can't imagine how life here weighs upon me too," and he drew away his hand.

"Well! go, go away!" she said, in an injured tone, and quickly left him.

CHAPTER XXXII

Vronsky came back to the hotel, Anna was not there. They told him that she had gone out with a lady who came to call on her. The fact that she had gone out without having left word where, a thing which she had not done before, the fact that she had also gone somewhere in the morning without telling him,—all this coupled with the strange expression of excitement on her face that morning, the manner and the harsh tone with which she had snatched away her son's photographs from him before Yashvin, made Vronsky wonder. He made up his mind to ask for an explanation, and waited in the drawing-room for her return. Anna did not come back alone; she brought with her an old maiden aunt, the Princess Oblonskaya. She was the lady who had come in the morning, and with whom she had been shopping.

Anna pretended not to notice the expression of Vronsky's face and his uneasy, questioning manner, and began to talk gayly about the purchases she had made