He could not believe that what gave such great and delicate pleasure to him, and above all to her, could be wrong.

Still less could he have believed that he ought to marry.

Marriage had never presented itself to him as a possibility.

He not only disliked family life, but a family, and especially a husband was, in accordance with the views general in the bachelor world in which he lived, conceived as something alien, repellant, and, above all, ridiculous.

But though Vronsky had not the least suspicion what the parents were saying, he felt on coming away from the Shtcherbatskys' that the secret spiritual bond which existed between him and Kitty had grown so much stronger that evening that some step must be taken.