While waiting for Saint-Loup to return I asked the restaurant proprietor for some bread. “Certainly, Monsieur le Baron!” “I am not a baron,” I told him in a tone of mock sadness. “Oh, beg pardon, Monsieur le Comte!” I had no time to lodge a second protest which would certainly have promoted me to the rank of marquis: faithful to his promise of an immediate return, Saint-Loup reappeared in the doorway carrying over his arm the thick vicuna cloak of the Prince de Foix, from whom I guessed that he had borrowed it in order to keep me warm. He signed to me not to get up, and came towards me, but either my table would have to be moved again, or I must change my seat if he was to get to his. On entering the big room he sprang lightly on to one of the red plush benches which ran round its walls and on which, apart from myself, there were sitting three or four of the young men from the Jockey Club, friends of his, who had not managed to find places in the other room. Between the tables and the wall electric wires were stretched at a certain height; without the slightest hesitation Saint-Loup jumped nimbly over them like a steeplechaser taking a fence; embarrassed that it should be done wholly for my benefit and to save me the trouble of a very minor disturbance, I was at the same time amazed at the precision with which my friend performed this feat of acrobatics; and in this I was not alone; for although they would probably have been only moderately appreciative of a similar display on the part of a more humbly born and less generous client, the proprietor and his staff stood fascinated, like race-goers in the enclosure; one underling, apparently rooted to the ground, stood gaping with a dish in his hand for which a party close beside him were waiting; and when Saint-Loup, having to get past his friends, climbed on to the back of the bench behind them and ran along it, balancing himself like a tight-rope walker, discreet applause broke from the body of the room. On coming to where I was sitting, he checked his momentum with the precision of a tributary chieftain before the throne of a sovereign, and, stooping down, handed to me with an air of courtesy and submission the vicuna cloak which a moment later, having taken his place beside me, without my having to make a single movement, he arranged as a light but warm shawl about my shoulders.
“By the way, while I think of it, my uncle Charlus has something to say to you. I promised I’d send you round to him tomorrow evening.”
“I was just going to speak to you about him. But tomorrow evening I’m dining out with your aunt Guermantes.”
“Yes, there’s a full-scale blow-out tomorrow at Oriane’s. I’m not asked. But my uncle Palamède doesn’t want you to go there. You can’t get out of it, I suppose? Well, anyhow, go on to my uncle’s afterwards. I think he’s very anxious to see you. Surely you could manage to get there by eleven. Eleven o’clock, don’t forget. I’ll let him know. He’s very touchy. If you don’t turn up he’ll never forgive you. And Oriane’s parties are always over quite early. If you’re only going to dine there you can quite easily be at my uncle’s by eleven. Actually I ought to go and see Oriane, about getting a transfer from Morocco. She’s so nice about all that sort of thing, and she can get anything she likes out of General de Saint-Joseph, who’s the man in charge. But don’t say anything about it to her. I’ve mentioned it to the Princesse de Parme, everything will be all right. Interesting place, Morocco. I could tell you all sorts of things. Very fine lot of men out there. One feels they’re on one’s own level, mentally.”
“You don’t think the Germans are going to go to war over it?”
“No, they’re annoyed with us, as after all they have every right to be. But the Kaiser is out for peace. They’re always making us think they want war, to force us to give in. Pure bluff, you know, like poker. The Prince of Monaco, one of Wilhelm II’s agents, comes and tells us in confidence that Germany will attack us if we don’t give in. So then we give in. But if we didn’t give in, there wouldn