`I am, but I can't be the first to talk about it. You can see by that whether I surmise right or wrong,' said Stepan Arkadyevich, gazing at Levin with a subtle smile.

`Well, and what have you to say to me?' said Levin in a quivering voice, feeling that all the muscles of his face were quivering too. `How do you look at it?

Stepan Arkadyevich slowly emptied his glass of Chablis, never taking his eyes off Levin.

`I?' said Stepan Arkadyevich. `There's nothing I desire so much as that - nothing! It would be the best thing that could happen.'

`But you're not making a mistake? You know what we're speaking of?' said Levin, piercing him with his eyes. `You think it's possible?'

`I think it's possible. Why not?'

`No! Do you really think it's possible? No - tell me all you think! Oh, but if... If refusal's in store for me!... Indeed I feel sure...'

`What makes you think so?' said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling at his excitement.

`It seems so to me sometimes. That will be awful for me, and for her too.'

`Oh, well, anyway there's nothing awful in it for a girl. Every girl's proud of a proposal.'

`Yes, every girl, but not she.'

Stepan Arkadyevich smiled. He so well knew that feeling of Levin's, that for him all the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class - all the girls in the world except her, and those girls with all sorts of human failings, and very ordinary girls: the other class - she alone, having no failings of any sort and higher than all humanity.

`Stay, take some sauce,' he said, holding back Levin's hand, who was pushing the sauce away.

Levin obediently helped himself to sauce, but would not let Stepan Arkadyevich go on with his dinner.

`No, stop a minute, stop a minute,' he said. `You must understand that it's a question of life and death for me. I have never spoken to anyone of this. And there's no one to whom I could speak of it, except yourself. You know we're utterly unlike each other, different in tastes, and views, and everything; but I know you're fond of me and understand me, and that's why I like you awfully. But for God's sake, be quite straightforward with me.'

`I tell you what I think,' said Stepan Arkadyevich, smiling. `But I'll say more: my wife is a wonderful woman...' Stepan Arkadyevich sighed, recalling his relations with his wife, and, after a moment's silence, resumed - `She has a gift of foreseeing things. She sees right through people; but that's not all; she knows what will come to pass, especially in the way of marriages. She foretold, for instance, that Princess Shahovskaia would marry Brenteln. No one would believe it, but it came to pass. And she's on your side.'

`How do you mean?'

`It's not only that she likes you - she says that Kitty is certain to be your wife.'

At these words Levin's face suddenly lighted up with a smile, a smile not far from touching tears.

`She says that!' cried out Levin. `I always said she was charming, your wife. There, that's enough said about it,' he said, getting up from his seat.