She hoped that he would continue to
cultivate such profitable acquaintances, but she had come to regard them
as less smart since the day when she had passed the Marquise de
Villeparisis in the street, wearing a black serge dress and a bonnet with
strings.
"But she looks like a pew-opener, like an old charwoman, darling! That a
marquise! Goodness knows I'm not a marquise, but you'd have to pay me a
lot of money before you'd get me to go about Paris rigged out like that!"
Nor could she understand Swann's continuing to live in his house on the
Quai d'Orleans, which, though she dared not tell him so, she considered
unworthy of him.
It was true that she claimed to be fond of 'antiques,' and used to assume
a rapturous and knowing air when she confessed how she loved to spend the
whole day 'rummaging' in second-hand shops, hunting for 'bric-a-brac,' and
things of the 'right date.' Although it was a point of honour, to which
she obstinately clung, as though obeying some old family custom, that she
should never answer any questions, never give any account of what she did
during the daytime, she spoke to Swann once about a friend to whose house
she had been invited, and had found that everything in it was 'of the
period.
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