Page 360 - swanns-way

She was not used to being treated with so much formal-
ity by men, and smiled as she answered: ‘No, not at all; I
don’t mind in the least.’
But he, chilled a little by her answer, perhaps, also, to
bear out the pretence that he had been sincere in adopting
the stratagem, or even because he was already beginning to
believe that he had been, exclaimed: ‘No, no; you mustn’t
speak. You will be out of breath again. You can easily an-
swer in signs; I shall understand. Really and truly now, you
don’t mind my doing this? Look, there is a little—I think
it must be pollen, spilt over your dress,—may I brush it off
with my hand? That’s not too hard; I’m not hurting you,
am I? I’m tickling you, perhaps, a little; but I don’t want to
touch the velvet in case I rub it the wrong way. But, don’t
you see, I really had to fasten the flowers; they would have
fallen out if I hadn’t. Like that, now; if I just push them a
little farther down.... Seriously, I’m not annoying you, am
I? And if I just sniff them to see whether they’ve really lost
all their scent? I don’t believe I ever smelt any before; may I?
Tell the truth, now.’
Still smiling, she shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly,
as who should say, ‘You’re quite mad; you know very well
that I like it.’
He slipped his other hand upwards along Odette’s cheek;
she fixed her eyes on him with that languishing and sol-
emn air which marks the women of the old Florentine’s
paintings, in whose faces he had found the type of hers;
swimming at the brink of her fringed lids, her brilliant
eyes, large and finely drawn as theirs, seemed on the verge

360 Swann’s Way