dent, in fact, has the ease, the grace of
movement of a trained gymnast each of whose supple limbs will carry out
precisely the movement that is required without any clumsy participation
by the rest of his body. The simple and elementary gestures used by a
man of the world when he courteously holds out his hand to the unknown
youth who is being introduced to him, and when he bows discreetly before
the Ambassador to whom he is being introduced, had gradually pervaded,
without his being conscious of it, the whole of Swann's social
deportment, so that in the company of people of a lower grade than his
own, such as the Verdurins and their friends, he instinctively shewed an
assiduity, and made overtures with which, by their account, any of their
'bores' would have dispensed. He chilled, though for a moment only,
on meeting Dr. Cottard; for seeing him close one eye with an ambiguous
smile, before they had yet spoken to one another (a grimace which
Cottard styled "letting 'em all come"), Swann supposed that the Doctor
recognised him from having met him already somewhere, probably in some
house of 'ill-fame,' though these he himself very rarely visited,
never having made a habit of indulging in the mercenary sort of love.
Regarding such an allusion as in bad taste, especially before Odette,
whose opinion of himself it might easily alter for the worse, Swann
assumed his most icy manner. But when he learned that the lady next to
the Doctor was Mme. Cottard, he decided that so young a husband would
not deliberately, in his wife's hearing, have made any allusion to
amusements of that order, and so ceased to interpret the Doctor's
expression in the sense which he had at first suspected. The painter at
once invited Swann to visit his studio with Odette, and Swann found him
very pleasant. "Perhaps you will be more highly favoured than I have
been," Mme. Verdurin broke in, with mock resentment of the favour,
"perhaps you will be allowed to see Cottard's portrait" (for which she
had given the painter a commission). "Take care, Master Biche," she
reminded the painter, whom it was a time-honoured pleasantry to address
as 'Master,' "to catch that nice look in his eyes, that witty little
twinkle. You know, what I want to have most of all is his smile; that's
what I've asked you to paint--the portrait of his smile." And since the
phrase struck her as noteworthy, she repeated it very loud, so as to
make sure that as many as possible of her gue