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Before Stepan Arkadyevitch had time to come up, a grouse flew out. Veslovsky missed it and it flew into an unmown meadow. This grouse was left for Veslovsky to follow up. Krak found it again and pointed, and Veslovsky shot it and went back to the carriage. "Now you go and I'll stay with the horses," he said. Levin had begun to feel the pangs of a sportsman's envy.
Stepan Arkadyevitch, like all unfaithful husbands indeed, was very solicitous for his wife's comfort, and he had himself looked over the house, and given instructions about everything that he considered necessary. What he considered necessary was to cover all the furniture with cretonne, to put up curtains, to weed the garden, to make a little bridge on the pond, and to plant flowers.
"Well, this fellow's appetite!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing and pointing at Vassenka Veslovsky. "I never suffer from loss of appetite, but he's really marvelous!..." "Well, it can't be helped," said Levin, looking gloomily at Veslovsky. "Well, Philip, give me some beef, then." "The beef's been eaten, and the bones given to the dogs," answered Philip.
He rubbed his face with his handkerchief, and wrapping round him his coat, which sat extremely well as it was, he greeted them with a smile, holding out his hand to Stepan Arkadyevitch, as though he wanted to catch something. "So here you are," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, giving him his hand. "That's capital."
Stepan Arkadyevitch was not dining at home, but he promised to come and see his sister off at seven o'clock. Kitty, too, did not come, sending a note that she had a headache. Dolly and Anna dined alone with the children and the English governess.
A secretary, with the good-humored deference common to every one in Stepan Arkadyevitch's office, came up with papers, and began to speak in the familiar and easy tone which had been introduced by Stepan Arkadyevitch. "We have succeeded in getting the information from the government department of Penza. Here, would you care?...."
"And I, by agreeing to an unlawful divorce, shall be to blame for her ruin." He had thought it all over hundreds of times, and was convinced that a divorce was not at all simple, as Stepan Arkadyevitch had said, but was utterly impossible.
"Oh, no, countess, I thought Moscow people had the reputation of being the firmest in the faith," answered Stepan Arkadyevitch. "But as far as I can make out, you are unfortunately one of the indifferent ones," said Alexey Alexandrovitch, turning to him with a weary smile. "How anyone can be indifferent!" said Lidia Ivanovna.
The Frenchman was asleep as well as Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Mon ami," said Lidia Ivanovna, carefully holding the folds of her silk gown so as not to rustle, and in her excitement calling Karenin not Alexey Alexandrovitch, but "mon ami," "donnez-lui la main. Vous voyez? Sh!" she hissed at the footman as he came in again. "Not at home."
This feeling was so unexpected and so strange that he did not believe it was the voice of conscience telling him that what he was meaning to do was wrong. Stepan Arkadyevitch made an effort and struggled with the timidity that had come over him. "I hope you believe in my love for my sister and my sincere affection and respect for you," he said, reddening.
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