Page 488 - swanns-way

oning on his being always free, she wished first to be certain
that no one else would offer to come to her. She would plead
that she was obliged to wait for an answer which was of the
very greatest importance, and if, even after she had made
Swann come to her house, any of her friends asked her, half-
way through the evening, to join them at some theatre, or at
supper afterwards, she would jump for joy and dress herself
with all speed. As her toilet progressed, every movement
that she made brought Swann nearer to the moment when
he would have to part from her, when she would fly off with
irresistible force; and when at length she was ready, and,
Plunging into her mirror a last glance strained and bright-
ened by her anxiety to look well, smeared a little salve on
her lips, fixed a stray loci of hair over her brow, and called
for her cloak of sky-blue silk with golde; tassels, Swann
would be looking so wretched that she would be unable t
restrain a gesture of impatience as she flung at him: ‘So that
is how yo thank me for keeping you here till the last minute!
And I thought I wa being so nice to you. Well, I shall know
better another time!’ Sometime ... at the risk of annoying
her, he made up his mind that he would find out where she
had gone, and even dreamed of a defensive alliance with
Forcheville, who might perhaps have been able to tell him.
But anyhow, when he knew with whom she was spending
the evening, it was very seldom that he could not discover,
among all his innumerable acquaintance, some one who
knew—if only indirectly—the man with whom she had
gone out, and could easily obtain this or that piece of infor-
mation about him. And while he was writing to one of his

488 Swann’s Way