Page 451 - swanns-way

was beyond her, she grasped that it was to be included among
the scenes of reproach or supplication, scenes which her fa-
miliarity with the ways of men enabled her, without paying
any heed to the words that were uttered, to conclude that
men would not make unless they were in love; that, from
the moment when they were in love, it was superfluous to
obey them, since they would only be more in love later on.
And so, she would have heard Swann out with the utmost
tranquillity had she not noticed that it was growing late,
and that if he went on speaking for any length of time she
would ‘never’ as she told him with a fond smile, obstinate
but slightly abashed, ‘get there in time for the Overture.’
On other occasions he had assured himself that the one
thing which, more than anything else, would make him
cease to love her, would be her refusal to abandon the habit
of lying. ‘Even from the point of view of coquetry, pure and
simple,’ he had told her, ‘can’t you see how much of your
attraction you throw away when you stoop to lying? By a
frank admission—how many faults you might redeem! Re-
ally, you are far less intelligent than I supposed!’ In vain,
however, did Swann expound to her thus all the reasons that
she had for not lying; they might have succeeded in over-
throwing any universal system of mendacity, but Odette
had no such system; she contented herself, merely, when-
ever she wished Swann to remain in ignorance of anything
that she had done, with not telling him of it. So that a lie
was, to her, something to be used only as a special expedi-
ent; and the one thing that could make her decide whether
she should avail herself of a lie or not was a reason which,

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