t in any hurry;
you're dashing round as if the house was on fire. Wait a little; don't
serve the salad just yet."

Mme. Cottard, who was a shy woman and spoke but seldom, was not lacking,
for all that, in self-assurance when a happy inspiration put the right
word in her mouth. She felt that it would be well received; the thought
gave her confidence, and what she was doing was done with the object not
so much of shining herself, as of helping her husband on in his career.
And so she did not allow the word 'salad,' which Mme. Verdurin had just
uttered, to pass unchallenged.

"It's not a Japanese salad, is it?" she whispered, turning towards
Odette.

And then, in her joy and confusion at the combination of neatness
and daring which there had been in making so discreet and yet so
unmistakable an allusion to the new and brilliantly successful play by
Dumas, she broke down in a charming, girlish laugh, not very loud, but
so irresistible that it was some time before she could control it.

"Who is that lady? She seems devilish clever," said Forcheville.

"No, it is not. But we will have one for you if you will all come to
dinner on Friday."

"You will think me dreadfully provincial, sir," said Mme. Cottard to
Swann, "but, do you know, I haven't been yet to this famous _Francillon_
that everybody's talking about. The Doctor has been (I remember now,
he told me what a very great pleasure it had been to him to spend the
evening with you there) and I must confess, I don't see much sense in
spending money on seats for him to take me, when he's seen the play
already. Of course an evening at the Theatre-Francais is never wasted,
really; the acting's so good there always; but we have some very nice
friends," (Mme. Cottard would hardly ever utter a proper name, but
restricted herself to "some friends of ours" or "one of my friends," as
being more 'distinguished,' speaking in an affected tone and with all
the importance of a person who need give names only when she chooses)
"who often have a box, and are kind enough to take us to all the
new pieces that are worth going to, and so I'm certain to see this
_Francillon_ sooner or later, and then I shall know what to think. But I
do feel such a fool about it, I must confess, for, whenever I pay a
call anywhere, I find everybody talking--it's only natural--about that
wretched Japanese salad. Really and truly, one's beginning to get just a
little tired of hearing about it," she went on,