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hoped that, when the fear of losing him clutched at her
heart, it would force from her words such as he had never
yet heard her utter: and he was right—by repeating this de-
vice he had won from her the most affectionate letters that
she had, so far, written him, one of them (which she had
sent to him at midday by a special messenger from the Mai-
son Dorée—it was the day of the Paris-Murcie Fête given for
the victims of the recent floods in Murcia) beginning ‘My
dear, my hand trembles so that I can scarcely write——‘;
and these letters he had kept in the same drawer as the with-
ered chrysanthemum. Or else, if she had not had time to
write, when he arrived at the Verdurins’ she would come
running up to him with an ‘I’ve something to say to you!’
and he would gaze curiously at the revelation in her face
and speech of what she had hitherto kept concealed from
him of her heart.
Even as he drew near to the Verdurins’ door, and caught
sight of the great lamp-lit spaces of the drawing-room win-
dows, whose shutters were never closed, he would begin
to melt at the thought of the charming creature whom he
would see, as he entered the room, basking in that golden
light. Here and there the figures of the guests stood out,
sharp and black, between lamp and window, shutting off
the light, like those little pictures which one sees sometimes
pasted here and there upon a glass screen, whose other
panes are mere transparencies. He would try to make out
Odette. And then, when he was once inside, without think-
ing, his eyes sparkled suddenly with such radiant happiness
that M. Verdurin said to the painter: ‘H’m. Seems to be get-

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