pointing to an orchid, with a shade of
respect in her voice for so 'smart' a flower, for this distinguished,
unexpected sister whom nature had suddenly bestowed upon her, so far
removed from her in the scale of existence, and yet so delicate, so
refined, so much more worthy than many real women of admission to
her drawing-room. As she drew his attention, now to the fiery-tongued
dragons painted upon a bowl or stitched upon a fire-screen, now to a
fleshy cluster of orchids, now to a dromedary of inlaid silver-work with
ruby eyes, which kept company, upon her mantelpiece, with a toad carved
in jade, she would pretend now to be shrinking from the ferocity of the
monsters or laughing at their absurdity, now blushing at the indecency
of the flowers, now carried away by an irresistible desire to run across
and kiss the toad and dromedary, calling them 'darlings.' And these
affectations were in sharp contrast to the sincerity of some of her
attitudes, notably her devotion to Our Lady of the Laghetto who had
once, when Odette was living at Nice, cured her of a mortal illness, and
whose medal, in gold, she always carried on her person, attributing
to it unlimited powers. She poured out Swann's tea, inquired "Lemon
or cream?" and, on his answering "Cream, please," went on, smiling, "A
cloud!" And as he pronounced it excellent, "You see, I know just how you
like it." This tea had indeed seemed to Swann, just as it seemed to
her, something precious, and love is so far obliged to find some
justification for itself, some guarantee of its duration in pleasures
which, on the contrary, would have no existence apart from love and must
cease with its passing, that when he left her, at seven o'clock, to go
and dress for the evening, all the way home, sitting bolt upright in
his brougham, unable to repress the happiness with which the afternoon's
adventure had filled him, he kept on repeating to himself: "What fun
it would be to have a little woman like that in a place where one could
always be certain of finding, what one never can be certain of finding,
a really good cup of tea." An hour or so later he received a note from
Odette, and at once recognised that florid handwriting, in which an
affectation of British stiffness imposed an apparent discipline upon its
shapeless characters, significant, perhaps, to less intimate eyes
than his, of an untidiness of mind, a fragmentary education, a want of
sincerity and decision. Swann had left his ci