Page 249 - swanns-way

I could not see her face clearly enough, I am sure that the
expression must have appeared on it which my grandmoth-
er had once found so delightful, when she hastily went on:
‘When I say ‘see us’ I mean, of course, see us reading. It’s
so dreadful to think that in every trivial little thing you do
some one may be overlooking you.’
With the instinctive generosity of her nature, a courtesy
beyond her control, she refrained from uttering the studied
words which, she had felt, were indispensable for the full
realisation of her desire. And perpetually, in the depths of
her being, a shy and suppliant maiden would kneel before
that other element, the old campaigner, battered but trium-
phant, would intercede with him and oblige him to retire.
‘Oh, yes, it is so extremely likely that people are looking
at us at this time of night in this densely populated district!’
said her friend, with bitter irony. ‘And what if they are?’ she
went on, feeling bound to annotate with a malicious yet af-
fectionate wink these words which she was repeating, out of
good nature, like a lesson prepared beforehand which, she
knew, it would please Mlle. Vinteuil to hear. ‘And what if
they are? All the better that they should see us.’
Mlle. Vinteuil shuddered and rose to her feet. In her sen-
sitive and scrupulous heart she was ignorant what words
ought to flow, spontaneously, from her lips, so as to pro-
duce the scene for which her eager senses clamoured. She
reached out as far as she could across the limitations of
her true character to find the language appropriate to a vi-
cious young woman such as she longed to be thought, but
the words which, she imagined, such a young woman might

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