Page 410 - swanns-way

that Swann owed the introduction. ‘Isn’t that so; wasn’t he
delicious, our Brichot?’
Swann bowed politely.
‘No? You weren’t interested?’ she asked dryly.
‘Oh, but I assure you, I was quite enthralled. He is per-
haps a little too peremptory, a little too jovial for my taste. I
should like to see him a little less confident at times, a little
more tolerant, but one feels that he knows a great deal, and
on the whole he seems a very sound fellow.’
The party broke up very late. Cottard’s first words to his
wife were: ‘I have rarely seen Mme. Verdurin in such form
as she was to-night.’
‘What exactly is your Mme. Verdurin? A bit of a bad hat,
eh?’ said Forcheville to the painter, to whom he had offered
a ‘lift.’ Odette watched his departure with regret; she dared
not refuse to let Swann take her home, but she was moody
and irritable in the carriage, and, when he asked whether
he might come in, replied, ‘I suppose so,’ with an impatient
shrug of her shoulders. When they had all gone, Mme. Ver-
durin said to her husband: ‘Did you notice the way Swann
laughed, such an idiotic laugh, when we spoke about Mme.
La Trémoïlle?’
She had remarked, more than once, how Swann and
Forcheville suppressed the particle ‘de’ before that la-
dy’s name. Never doubting that it was done on purpose,
to shew that they were not afraid of a title, she had made
up her mind to imitate their arrogance, but had not quite
grasped what grammatical form it ought to take. Moreover,
the natural corruptness of her speech overcoming her im-

410 Swann’s Way