Anna suggests a walk before dinner to show Dolly around the estate. Finding herself with Vronsky, Dolly feels ill at ease for she has never liked his proud manners. But as he enthusiastically explains about his building plans, their architectural design, his intentions for the new hospital, Dolly begins to warm toward him and understands the qualities Anna loves. Drawing her out of earshot of their friends, Vronsky begs Dolly to use her influence and persuade Anna to obtain a divorce. We have one child now, he says, and might have others. Yet they legally belong to Karenin: "unless she can obtain a divorce, the children of the woman I love, will belong to someone who hates them and will have nothing to do with them." Deeply moved, Dolly promises to talk to Anna.
Dinner is elegant and well-prepared: Vronsky is responsible for the excellent choice of food and wine. Anna appears in the third gown Dolly has seen her in that day, while Dolly feels ashamed to wear the one good frock she brought along, and that already patched. She is disturbed at the flirtatious exchanges between Anna and Veslovsky, which Vronsky seems to enjoy. Dolly recalls how Levin dismissed Vassenka for the same behavior. The impersonal atmosphere of this everyday, yet elegant, dinner makes Dolly uncomfortable. Her feelings intensify during the after dinner game of lawn tennis which to her has the "unnaturalness of grown-up people playing a child's game in the absence of children." In this idle atmosphere she suddenly misses the maternal cares and worries after only a one day holiday from them.
