She gave him her hand, and they set off side by side, going faster and faster, and the more rapidly they moved the more tightly she grasped his hand.

“With you I should soon learn; I somehow feel confidence in you,” she said to him.

“And I have confidence in myself when you are leaning on me,” he said, but was at once panic-stricken at what he had said, and blushed. And indeed, no sooner had he uttered these words, when all at once, like the sun going behind a cloud, her face lost all its friendliness, and Levin detected the familiar change in her expression that denoted the working of thought; a crease showed on her smooth brow.

“Is there anything troubling you?⁠—though I’ve no right to ask such a question,” he added hurriedly.

“Oh, why so?⁠ ⁠… No, I have nothing to trouble me,” she responded coldly; and she added immediately: “You haven’t seen Mlle. Linon, have you?”