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By Root 1532 0

to the other and migrates to her salon. This, however, is not the proper place to describe those men, superior to the life of society but lacking the capacity to realise themselves outside it, glad to be invited, embittered at being underrated, discovering annually the defects of the hostess to whom they have been offering incense and the genius of the other whom they have never properly appreciated, ready to return to the old love when they have experienced the drawbacks to be found equally in the new, and when they have begun to forget those of the old. We may judge by such temporary falls from grace of the chagrin that Brichot felt at this one, which he knew to be final. He was not unaware that Mme Verdurin sometimes laughed at him publicly, even at his infirmities, and knowing how little was to be expected of human affection, he continued nevertheless to regard the Mistress as his best friend. But, from the blush that crept over the scholar’s face, Mme Verdurin realised that he had heard her, and made up her mind to be kind to him for the rest of the evening. I could not help remarking to her that she had not been very kind to Saniette. “What! Not kind to him! Why, he adores us, you’ve no idea what we are to him. My husband is sometimes a little irritated by his stupidity, and you must admit with some reason, but when that happens why doesn’t he hit back instead of cringing like a whipped dog? It’s so unmanly. I can’t bear it. That doesn’t mean that I don’t always try to calm my husband, because if he went too far, all that would happen would be that Saniette would stay away; and I don’t want that because I may tell you that he hasn’t a penny in the world, he needs his dinners. But after all, if he takes offence, he can stay away, it’s nothing to do with me. When you rely on other people you should try not to be such an idiot.”

“The Duchy of Aumale was in our family for years before passing to the House of France,” M. de Charlus was explaining to M. de Cambremer in front of a flabber-gasted Morel, for whose benefit the whole dissertation was intended, if it was not actually addressed to him. “We took precedence over all foreign princes; I could give you a hundred examples. The Princesse de Croy having attempted, at the burial of Monsieur, to fall on her knees after my great-great-grandmother, the latter reminded her sharply that she had no right to the hassock, made the officer on duty remove it, and reported the matter to the King, who ordered Mme de Croy to call upon Mme de Guermantes and offer her apologies. The Duc de Bourgogne having come to us with ushers with raised batons, we obtained the King’s authority to have them lowered. I know it is not good form to speak of the merits of one’s own family. But it is well known that our people were always to the fore in the hour of danger. Our battle-cry, after we abandoned that of the Dukes of Brabant, was Passavant! So that it is not unjust on the whole that this right to be everywhere the first, which we had established for so many centuries in war, should afterwards have been granted to us at Court. And, to be sure, it was always acknowledged there. I may give you a further instance, that of the Princess of Baden. As she had so far forgotten herself as to attempt to challenge the precedence of that same Duchesse de Guermantes of whom I was speaking just now, and had attempted to go in first to the King’s presence by taking advantage of a momentary hesitation which my ancestress may perhaps have shown (although there was no reason for it), the King called out: ‘Come in, cousin, come in; Mme de Baden knows very well what her duty is to you.’ And it was as Duchesse de Guermantes that she held this rank, albeit she was of no mean family herself, since she was through her mother niece to the Queen of Poland, the Queen of Hungary, the Elector Palatine, the Prince of Savoy-Carignano and the Elector of Hanover, afterwards King of England.”

“Maecenas atavis edite regibus!” said Brichot, addressing M. de Charlus, who acknowledged the compliment with a slight nod.

“What did