Well, Kitty, have you been skating again?..." And she began talking to Kitty.

Awkward as it was for Levin to withdraw now, it would still have been easier for him to perpetrate this awkwardness than to remain all the evening and see Kitty, who glanced at him now and then and avoided his eyes.

He was on the point of getting up, when the princess, noticing that he was silent, addressed him.