The colonel was followed by Serpuhovskoy, who came out onto the steps smiling, with a glass in his hand.

“You always get younger, Bondarenko,” he said to the rosy-checked, smart-looking quartermaster standing just before him, still youngish looking though doing his second term of service.

It was three years since Vronsky had seen Serpuhovskoy. He looked more robust, had let his whiskers grow, but was still the same graceful creature, whose face and figure were even more striking from their softness and nobility than their beauty. The only change Vronsky detected in him was that subdued, continual radiance of beaming content which settles on the faces of men who are successful and are sure of the recognition of their success by everyone. Vronsky knew that radiant air, and immediately observed it in Serpuhovskoy.