The absence of Mlle. Swann, which--since it preserved me from the terrible
risk of seeing her appear on one of the paths, and of being identified and
scorned by this so privileged little girl who had Bergotte for a friend
and used to go with him to visit cathedrals--made the exploration of
Tansonville, now for the first time permitted me, a matter of
indifference to myself, seemed however to invest the property, in my
grandfather's and father's eyes, with a fresh and transient charm, and
(like an entirely cloudless sky when one is going mountaineering) to make
the day extraordinarily propitious for a walk in this direction; I should
have liked to see their reckoning proved false, to see, by a miracle,
Mlle. Swann appear, with her father, so close to us that we should not
have time to escape, and should therefore be obliged to make her
acquaintance. And so, when I suddenly noticed a straw basket lying
forgotten on the grass by the side of a line whose float was bobbing in
the water, I made a great effort to keep my father and grandfather looking
in another direction, away from this sign that she might, after all, be in
residence.
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