Page 116 - swanns-way

that we got to know one another.’
I felt somewhat disillusioned, for this young lady was in
no way different from other pretty women whom I had seen
from time to time at home, especially the daughter of one of
our cousins, to whose house I went every New Year’s Day.
Only better dressed; otherwise my uncle’s friend had the
same quick and kindly glance, the same frank and friendly
manner. I could find no trace in her of the theatrical appear-
ance which I admired in photographs of actresses, nothing
of the diabolical expression which would have been in keep-
ing with the life she must lead. I had difficulty in believing
that this was one of ‘those women,’ and certainly I should
never have believed her one of the ‘smart ones’ had I not
seen the carriage and pair, the pink dress, the pearly neck-
lace, had I not been aware, too, that my uncle knew only the
very best of them. But I asked myself how the millionaire
who gave her her carriage and her flat and her jewels could
find any pleasure in flinging his money away upon a woman
who had so simple and respectable an appearance. And yet,
when I thought of what her life must be like, its immoral-
ity disturbed me more, perhaps, than if it had stood before
me in some concrete and recognisable form, by its secrecy
and invisibility, like the plot of a novel, the hidden truth of
a scandal which had driven out of the home of her middle-
class parents and dedicated to the service of all mankind
which had brought to the flowering-point of her beauty, had
raised to fame or notoriety this woman, the play of whose
features, the intonations of whose voice, like so many oth-
ers I already knew, made me regard her, in spite of myself,

116 Swann’s Way