Page 44 - swanns-way

ing towns where old mansions still testify to their former
courtly days, and chemical workers toil among delicately
sculptured scenes of the Miracle of Theophilus or the Qua-
tre Fils Aymon.
In this particular instance, the article of her code which
made it highly improbable that—barring an outbreak of
fire—Françoise would go down and disturb Mamma when
M. Swann was there for so unimportant a person as myself
was one embodying the respect she shewed not only for the
family (as for the dead, for the clergy, or for royalty), but also
for the stranger within our gates; a respect which I should
perhaps have found touching in a book, but which never
failed to irritate me on her lips, because of the solemn and
gentle tones in which she would utter it, and which irritated
me more than usual this evening when the sacred character
in which she invested the dinner-party might have the ef-
fect of making her decline to disturb its ceremonial. But to
give myself one chance of success I lied without hesitation,
telling her that it was not in the least myself who had want-
ed to write to Mamma, but Mamma who, on saying good
night to me, had begged me not to forget to send her an an-
swer about something she had asked me to find, and that she
would certainly be very angry if this note were not taken to
her. I think that Françoise disbelieved me, for, like those
primitive men whose senses were so much keener than our
own, she could immediately detect, by signs imperceptible
by the rest of us, the truth or falsehood of anything that we
might wish to conceal from her. She studied the envelope
for five minutes as though an examination of the paper it-

44 Swann’s Way