ity. "And so I am just doing what
I was taught to do. Can't you see those good people, with a totally
strange woman bursting into their house? Why, I might get a most hostile
reception."

And she coquettishly enhanced the charm of the smile which the idea had
brought to her lips, by giving to her blue eyes, which were fixed on the
General, a gentle, dreamy expression.

"My dear Princess, you know that they'd be simply wild with joy."

"No, why?" she inquired, with the utmost vivacity, either so as to seem
unaware that it would be because she was one of the first ladies in
France, or so as to have the pleasure of hearing the General tell
her so. "Why? How can you tell? Perhaps they would think it the most
unpleasant thing that could possibly happen. I know nothing about them,
but if they're anything like me, I find it quite boring enough to see
the people I do know; I'm sure if I had to see people I didn't know
as well, even if they had 'fought like heroes,' I should go stark mad.
Besides, except when it's an old friend like you, whom one knows quite
apart from that, I'm not sure that 'heroism' takes one very far in
society. It's often quite boring enough to have to give a dinner-party,
but if one had to offer one's arm to Spartacus, to let him take one
down...! Really, no; it would never be Vercingetorix I should send for,
to make a fourteenth. I feel sure, I should keep him for really big
'crushes.' And as I never give any..."

"Ah! Princess, it's easy to see you're not a Guermantes for nothing. You
have your share of it, all right, the 'wit of the Guermantes'!"

"But people always talk about the wit of the Guermantes; I never could
make out why. Do you really know any others who have it?" she rallied
him, with a rippling flow of laughter, her features concentrated, yoked
to the service of her animation, her eyes sparkling, blazing with
a radiant sunshine of gaiety which could be kindled only by such
speeches--even if the Princess had to make them herself--as were in
praise of h wit or of her beauty. "Look, there's Swann talking to your
Cambremer woman; over there, beside old Saint-Euverte, don't you see
him? Ask him to introduce you. But hurry up, he seems to be just going!"

"Did you notice how dreadfully ill he's looking?" asked the General.

"My precious Charles? Ah, he's coming at last; I was beginning to think
he didn't want to see me!"

Swann was extremely fond of the Princesse des Laumes, and the sight