had offered a 'lift.' Odette
watched his departure with regret; she dared not refuse to let Swann
take her home, but she was moody and irritable in the carriage, and,
when he asked whether he might come in, replied, "I suppose so," with an
impatient shrug of her shoulders. When they had all gone, Mme. Verdurin
said to her husband: "Did you notice the way Swann laughed, such an
idiotic laugh, when we spoke about Mme. La Tremoille?"

She had remarked, more than once, how Swann and Forcheville suppressed
the particle 'de' before that lady's name. Never doubting that it was
done on purpose, to shew that they were not afraid of a title, she had
made up her mind to imitate their arrogance, but had not quite
grasped what grammatical form it ought to take. Moreover, the natural
corruptness of her speech overcoming her implacable republicanism,
she still said instinctively "the de La Tremoilles," or, rather (by
an abbreviation sanctified by the usage of music-hall singers and the
writers of the 'captions' beneath caricatures, who elide the 'de'),
"the d'La Tremoilles," but she corrected herself at once to "Madame La
Tremoille.--The _Duchess_, as Swann calls her," she added ironically,
with a smile which proved that she was merely quoting, and would not,
herself, accept the least responsibility for a classification so puerile
and absurd.

"I don't mind saying that I thought him extremely stupid."

M. Verdurin took it up. "He's not sincere. He's a crafty customer,
always hovering between one side and the other. He's always trying to
run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. What a difference between
him and Forcheville. There, at least, you have a man who tells you
straight out what he thinks. Either you agree with him or you don't.
Not like the other fellow, who's never definitely fish or fowl. Did you
notice, by the way, that Odette seemed all out for Forcheville, and I
don't blame her, either. And then, after all, if Swann tries to come
the man of fashion over us, the champion of distressed Duchesses, at any
rate the other man has got a title; he's always Comte de Forcheville!"
he let the words slip delicately from his lips, as though, familiar with
every page of the history of that dignity, he were making a scrupulously
exact estimate of its value, in relation to others of the sort.

"I don't mind saying," Mme. Verdurin went on, "that he saw fit to utter
some most venomous, and quite absurd insinuations against Brichot.