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 I am troubled about Yashvin, and I want to stay here till he has finished playing."

"Is he going to lose?"

"All he has. I am the only one who has any influence over him," said Vronsky.

"What do you say, Levin, shall we have a game of pool? First-rate," said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Place the pyramid," said he, addressing the marker.

"It is all ready," replied the marker, who had some time before put the balls in the triangular frame, and had placed the red ball in readiness to break the pyramid.

"Well, then, go ahead."

After their game, Vronsky and Levin sat down at Gagin's table, and Levin, at Stepan Arkadyevitch's instance, began to bet on the aces. Vronsky sat down for a time at the same table, where his acquaintances kept coming up and joining him; then, after a time, he went to the Infernalnaya to find out how Yashvin was getting along. Levin felt a pleasant sense of exhilaration after the intellectual weariness of the morning. He was pleased to have his unfriendly feehngs toward Vronsky ended, and the impression of restfulness, good-fellowship, and comfort still remained by him.

When the game was ended, Stepan Arkadyevitch took Levin's arm, saying:—

"Well! let us go to see Anna. We need n't wait for Vronsky. What say you? She is at home. I promised her to bring you a long time ago. Where were you going this evening?"

"Nowhere in particular. I only told Sviazhsky I would go to the Society of Rural Economy. But I'll go with you, if you wish."

"Excellent! let us go, then. See if my carriage has come," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, addressing a lackey.

Levin went to the desk, paid the forty rubles which he had lost at cards, in some mysterious way gave his fee to the old lackey who was standing by the door, and went through the long rooms down to the entrance.