Levin went to the steps, took a run from above as best he could, and dashed down, preserving his balance in this unwonted movement with his hands. On the last step he stumbled, but barely touching the ice with his hand, with a violent effort recovered himself, and skated off, laughing.

`What a fine, darling chap he is!' Kitty was thinking at that moment, as she came out of the pavilion with Mlle. Linon and looked toward him with a smile of quiet kindness, as though he were a favorite brother. `And can it be my fault, can I have done anything wrong? They talk of coquetry. I know it's not he that I love; but still I am happy with him, and he's so nice. Only, why did he say that?...' she mused.

Catching sight of Kitty going away, and her mother meeting her at the steps, Levin, flushed from his rapid exercise, stood still and pondered a minute. He took off his skates, and overtook the mother and daughter at the entrance of the gardens.

`Delighted to see you,' said Princess Shcherbatskaia. `On Thursdays we are home, as always.'

`Today, then?'

`We shall be pleased to see you,' the Princess said stiffly.

This stiffness hurt Kitty, and she could not resist the desire to smooth over her mother's coldness. She turned her head, and with a smile said:

`Good-by till this evening.'

At that moment Stepan Arkadyevich, his hat cocked on one side, with beaming face and eyes, strode into the garden like a buoyant conqueror. But as he approached his mother-in-law, he responded to her inquiries about Dolly's health with a mournful and guilty countenance. After a little subdued and dejected conversation with her he set straight his chest again, and took Levin by the arm.

`Well, shall we set off?' he asked. `I've been thinking about you all this time, and I'm very, very glad you've come,' he said, looking him in the face with a significant air.

`Yes, come along,' answered Levin in ecstasy, hearing unceasingly the sound of that voice saying, `Good- by till this evening,' and seeing the smile with which it was said.

`To England or The Hermitage?'

`It's all the same to me.'

`Well, then, England it is,' said Stepan Arkadyevich, selecting that restaurant because he owed more there than at The Hermitage, and consequently considered it mean to avoid it. `Have you got a sleigh? That's fine - for I sent my carriage home.'

The friends hardly spoke all the way. Levin was wondering what that change in Kitty's expression had meant, and alternately assuring himself that there was hope, and falling into despair, seeing clearly that his hopes were insane, and yet all the while he felt himself quite another man, utterly unlike what he had been before her smile and those words, `Good-by till this evening.'

Stepan Arkadyevich was absorbed during the drive in composing the menu of the dinner.

`You like turbot, don't you?' he said to Levin as they were arriving.

`Eh?' responded Levin. `Turbot? Yes, I'm awfully fond of turbot.'