Levin came back to the house only when they sent to summon him to
supper. On the stairs were standing Kitty and Agafea Mihalovna,
consulting about wines for supper.
"But why are you making all this fuss? Have what we usually do."
"No, Stiva doesn't drink...Kostya, stop, what's the matter?"
Kitty began, hurrying after him, but he strode ruthlessly away to
the dining room without waiting for her, and at once joined in
the lively general conversation which was being maintained there
by Vassenka Veslovsky and Stepan Arkadyevitch.
"Well, what do you say, are we going shooting tomorrow?" said
Stepan Arkadyevitch.
"Please, do let's go," said Veslovsky, moving to another chair,
where he sat down sideways, with one fat leg crossed under him.
"I shall be delighted, we will go. And have you had any shooting
yet this year?" said Levin to Veslovsky, looking intently at his
leg, but speaking with that forced amiability that Kitty knew so
well in him, and that was so out of keeping with him. "I can't
answer for our finding grouse, but there are plenty of snipe.
Only we ought to start early. You're not tired? Aren't you
tired, Stiva?"
"Me tired? I've never been tired yet. Suppose we stay up all
night. Let's go for a walk!"
"Yes, really, let's not go to bed at all! Capital!" Veslovsky
chimed in.
"Oh, we all know you can do without sleep, and keep other people
up too," Dolly said to her husband, with that faint note of irony
in her voice which she almost always had now with her husband.
"But to my thinking, it's time for bed now.... I'm going, I
don't want supper."
"No, do stay a little, Dolly," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, going
round to her side behind the table where they were having supper.
"I've so much still to tell you."
"Nothing really, I suppose."
"Do you know Veslovsky has been at Anna's, and he's going to them
again? You know they're hardly fifty miles from you, and I too
must certainly go over there. Veslovsky, come here!"
Vassenka crossed over to the ladies, and sat down beside Kitty.
"Ah, do tell me, please; you have stayed with her? How was she?"
Darya Alexandrovna appealed to him.
Levin was left at the other end of the table, and though never
pausing in his conversation with the princess and Varenka, he saw
that there was an eager and mysterious conversation going on
between Stepan Arkadyevitch, Dolly, Kitty, and Veslovsky. And
that was not all. He saw on his wife's face an expression of
real feeling as she gazed with fixed eyes on the handsome face of
Vassenka, who was telling them something with great animation.