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This boy was more often than anyone else a check upon their

freedom. When he was present, both Vronsky and Anna did not

merely avoid speaking of anything that they could not have

repeated before everyone; they did not even allow themselves to

refer by hints to anything the boy did not understand. They had

made no agreement about this, it had settled itself. They would

have felt it wounding themselves to deceive the child. In his

presence they talked like acquaintances. But in spite of this

caution, Vronsky often saw the child's intent, bewildered glance

fixed upon him, and a strange shyness, uncertainty, at one time

friendliness, at another, coldness and reserve, in the boy's

manner to him; as though the child felt that between this man and

his mother there existed some important bond, the significance of

which he could not understand.