All the evening Nikoláy paid attention to a blue-eyed, plump and pleasing little blonde, the wife of one of the provincial officials. With the naive conviction of young men in a merry mood that other men’s wives were created for them, Rostóv did not leave the lady’s side and treated her husband in a friendly and conspiratorial style, as if, without speaking of it, they knew how capitally Nikoláy and the lady would get on together. The husband, however, did not seem to share that conviction and tried to behave morosely with Rostóv. But the latter’s good-natured naivete was so boundless that sometimes even he involuntarily yielded to Nikoláy’s good humor. Toward the end of the evening, however, as the wife’s face grew more flushed and animated, the husband’s became more and more melancholy and solemn, as though there were but a given amount of animation between them and as the wife’s share increased the husband’s diminished.