informed her cousin that Swann was in the room, Chopin
himself might have risen from the grave and played all his works in
turn without Mme. des Laumes's paying him the slightest attention. She
belonged to that one of the two divisions of the human race in which the
untiring curiosity which the other half feels about the people whom it
does not know is replaced by an unfailing interest in the people whom it
does. As with many women of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the presence, in
any room in which she might find herself, of another member of her set,
even although she had nothing in particular to say to him, would occupy
her mind to the exclusion of every other consideration. From that
moment, in the hope that Swann would catch sight of her, the Princess
could do nothing but (like a tame white mouse when a lump of sugar is
put down before its nose and then taken away) turn her face, in which
were crowded a thousand signs of intimate connivance, none of them with
the least relevance to the sentiment underlying Chopin's music, in the
direction where Swann was, and, if he moved, divert accordingly the
course of her magnetic smile.

"Oriane, don't be angry with me," resumed Mme. de Gallardon, who could
never restrain herself from sacrificing her highest social ambitions,
and the hope that she might one day emerge into a light that would
dazzle the world, to the immediate and secret satisfaction of saying
something disagreeable, "people do say about your M. Swann that he's the
sort of man one can't have in the house; is that true?"

"Why, you, of all people, ought to know that it's true," replied the
Princesse des Laumes, "for you must have asked him a hundred times, and
he's never been to your house once."

And leaving her cousin mortified afresh, she broke out again into a
laugh which scandalised everyone who was trying to listen to the music,
but attracted the attention of Mme. de Saint-Euverte, who had stayed,
out of politeness, near the piano, and caught sight of the Princess now
for the first time. Mme. de Saint-Euverte was all the more delighted
to see Mme. des Laumes, as she imagined her to be still at Guermantes,
looking after her father-in-law, who was ill.

"My dear Princess, you here?"

"Yes, I tucked myself away in a corner, and I've been hearing such
lovely things."

"What, you've been in the room quite a time?"

"Oh, yes, quite a long time, which seemed very short; it was only long
because I couldn't s