Passing through rows of ironical eyes, he was drawn as naturally to her loving glance as a plant to the sun.

"I congratulate you," she said to him, her eyes on his ribbon.

Suppressing a smile of pleasure, he shrugged his shoulders, closing his eyes, as though to say that that could not be a source of joy to him.

Countess Lidia Ivanovna was very well aware that it was one of his chief sources of satisfaction, though he never admitted it.