ys affecting the same
air of virtue before people whom he is anxious to keep from having any
suspicion of his vices, has no register, no gauge at hand from which
he may ascertain bow far those vices (their continuous growth being
imperceptible by himself) have gradually segregated him from the normal
ways of life. In the course of their cohabitation, in Odette's mind,
with the memory of those of her actions which she concealed from Swann,
her other, her innocuous actions were gradually coloured, infected
by these, without her being able to detect anything strange in them,
without their causing any explosion in the particular region of herself
in which she made them live, but when she related them to Swann, he was
overwhelmed by the revelation of the duplicity to which they pointed.
One day, he was trying--without hurting Odette--to discover from her
whether she had ever had any dealings with procuresses. He was, as a
matter of fact, convinced that she had not; the anonymous letter had
put the idea into his mind, but in a purely mechanical way; it had been
received there with no credulity, but it had, for all that, remained
there, and Swann, wishing to be rid of the burden--a dead weight, but
none the less disturbing--of this suspicion, hoped that Odette would now
extirpate it for ever.

"Oh dear, no! Not that they don't simply persecute me to go to them,"
her smile revealed a gratified vanity which she no longer saw that it
was impossible should appear legitimate to Swann. "There was one of them
waited more than two hours for me yesterday, said she would give me any
money I asked. It seems, there's an Ambassador who said to her, 'I'll
kill myself if you don't bring her to me'--meaning me! They told her I'd
gone out, but she waited and waited, and in the end I had to go myself
and speak to her, before she'd go away. I do wish you could have seen
the way I tackled her; my maid was in the next room, listening, and told
me I shouted fit to bring the house down:--'But when you hear me say
that I don't want to! The idea of such a thing, I don't like it at all!
I should hope I'm still free to do as I please and when I please and
where I please! If I needed the money, I could understand...' The porter
has orders not to let her in again; he will tell her that I am out of
town. Oh, I do wish I could have had you hidden somewhere in the room
while I was talking to her. I know, you'd have been pleased, my dear.
There's some good in