Forcheville. At any rate, this loathsome expedition, it would not be
Swann who had to pay for it. Ah! if he could only manage to prevent
it, if she could sprain her ankle before starting, if the driver of the
carriage which was to take her to the station would consent (no matter
how great the bribe) to smuggle her to some place where she could be
kept for a time in seclusion, that perfidious woman, her eyes tinselled
with a smile of complicity for Forcheville, which was what Odette had
become for Swann in the last forty-eight hours.

But she was never that for very long; after a few days the shining,
crafty eyes lost their brightness and their duplicity, that picture of
an execrable Odette saying to Forcheville: "Look at him storming!" began
to grow pale and to dissolve. Then gradually reappeared and rose before
him, softly radiant, the face of the other Odette, of that Odette who
al^o turned with a smile to Forcheville, but with a smile in which there
was nothing but affection for Swann, when she said: "You mustn't stay
long, for this gentleman doesn't much like my having visitors when he's
here. Oh! if you only knew the creature as I know him!" that same smile
with which she used to thank Swann for some instance of his courtesy
which she prized so highly, for some advice for which she had asked him
in one of those grave crises in her life, when she could turn to him
alone.

Then, to this other Odette, he would ask himself what could have induced
him to write that outrageous letter, of which, probably, until then,
she had never supposed him capable, a letter which must have lowered him
from the high, from the supreme place which, by his generosity, by his
loyalty, he had won for himself in her esteem. He would become less dear
to her, since it was for those qualities, which she found neither in
Forcheville nor in any other, that she loved him. It was for them that
Odette so often shewed him a reciprocal kindness, which counted for less
than nothing in his moments of jealousy, because it was not a sign of
reciprocal desire, was indeed a proof rather of affection than of love,
but the importance of which he began once more to feel in proportion as
the spontaneous relaxation of his suspicions, often accelerated by the
distraction brought to him by reading about art or by the conversation
of a friend, rendered his passion less exacting of reciprocities.

Now that, after this swing of the pendulum, Odette had naturally