But no one answered him, and he did not repeat the question.
“I’m sorry I’ve broken in on your feminine parliament,” he said, looking round on everyone discontentedly, and perceiving that they had been talking of something which they would not talk about before him.
For a second he felt that he was sharing the feeling of Agafea Mihalovna, vexation at their making jam without water, and altogether at the outside Shtcherbatsky element. He smiled, however, and went up to Kitty.
“Well, how are you?” he asked her, looking at her with the expression with which everyone looked at her now.
“Oh, very well,” said Kitty, smiling, “and how have things gone with you?”
“The wagons held three times as much as the old carts did. Well, are we going for the children? I’ve ordered the horses to be put in.”
“What! you want to take Kitty in the wagonette?” her mother said reproachfully.
“Yes, at a walking pace, princess.”
Levin never called the princess “maman” as men often do call their mothers-in-law, and the princess disliked his not doing so. But though he liked and respected the princess, Levin could not call her so without a sense of profaning his feeling for his dead mother.
“Come with us, maman,” said Kitty.