le and replacing it, as though he were laying
a fresh dressing on the raw wound underneath, while the Princess
instinctively looked away, "that Empire nobility, well, of course, it's
not the same thing, but, after all, taking it as it is, it's very fine
of its kind; they were people who really did fight like heroes."

"But I have the deepest respect for heroes," the Princess assented,
though with a faint trace of irony. "If I don't go with Basin to see
this Princesse d'Iena, it isn't for that, at all; it's simply because
I don't know them. Basin knows them; he worships them. Oh, no, it's not
what you think; he's not in love with her. I've nothing to set my face
against! Besides, what good has it ever done when I have set my face
against them?" she queried sadly, for the whole world knew that,
ever since the day upon which the Prince des Laumes had married his
fascinating cousin, he had been consistently unfaithful to her. "Anyhow,
it isn't that at all. They're people he has known for ever so long, they
do him very well, and that suits me down to the ground. But I must tell
you what he's told me about their house; it's quite enough. Can you
imagine it, all their furniture is 'Empire'!"

"But, my dear Princess, that's only natural; it belonged to their
grandparents."

"I don't quite say it didn't, but that doesn't make it any less ugly. I
quite understand that people can't always have nice things, but at least
they needn't have things that are merely grotesque. What do you say?
I can think of nothing more devastating, more utterly smug than that
hideous style--cabinets covered all over with swans' heads, like
bath-taps!"

"But I believe, all the same, that they've got some lovely things; why,
they must have that famous mosaic table on which the Treaty of..."

"Oh, I don't deny, they may have things that are interesting enough
from the historic point of view. But things like that can't, ever, be
beautiful ... because they're simply horrible! I've got things like that
myself, that came to Basin from the Montesquious. Only, they're up in
the attics at Guermantes, where nobody ever sees them. But, after all,
that's not the point, I would fly to see them, with Basin; I would even
go to see them among all their sphinxes and brasses, if I knew them,
but--I don't know them! D'you know, I was always taught, when I was a
little girl, that it was not polite to call on people one didn't know."
She assumed a tone of childish grav