"Did you notice the face he pulled when he saw that she wasn't here?" M.
Verdurin asked his wife. "I think we may say that he's hooked."
"The face he pulled?" exploded Dr. Cottard who, having left the house for
a moment to visit a patient, had just returned to fetch his wife and did
not know whom they were discussing.
"D'you mean to say you didn't meet him on the doorstep--the loveliest of
Swanns?"
"No. M. Swann has been here?"
"Just for a moment. We had a glimpse of a Swann tremendously agitated. In
a state of nerves. You see, Odette had left."
"You mean to say that she has gone the 'whole hog' with him; that she has
'burned her boats'?" inquired the Doctor cautiously, testing the meaning
of his phrases.
"Why, of course not; there's absolutely nothing in it; in fact, between
you and me, I think she's making a great mistake, and behaving like a
silly little fool, which she is, incidentally."
"Come, come, come!" said M. Verdurin, "How on earth do you know that
there's 'nothing in it'? We haven't been there to see, have we now?"
"She would have told me," answered Mme. Verdurin with dignity.
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