“Just imagine⁠—I knew nothing about him!” said he. “I thought he had been killed. All I know I heard at second hand from others. I only know that he fell in with the Rostóvs.⁠ ⁠… What a strange coincidence!”

Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced once at the companion’s face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed on him, and, as often happens when one is talking, felt somehow that this companion in the black dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would not hinder his conversing freely with Princess Márya.

But when he mentioned the Rostóvs, Princess Márya’s face expressed still greater embarrassment. She again glanced rapidly from Pierre’s face to that of the lady in the black dress and said:

“Do you really not recognize her?”

Pierre looked again at the companion’s pale, delicate face with its black eyes and peculiar mouth, and something near to him, long forgotten and more than sweet, looked at him from those attentive eyes.