"He's not sincere. He's a crafty customer, always
hovering between one side and the other. He's always trying to run with
the hare and hunt with the hounds. What a difference between him and
Forcheville. There, at least, you have a man who tells you straight out
what he thinks. Either you agree with him or you don't. Not like the other
fellow, who's never definitely fish or fowl. Did you notice, by the way,
that Odette seemed all out for Forcheville, and I don't blame her, either.
And then, after all, if Swann tries to come the man of fashion over us,
the champion of distressed Duchesses, at any rate the other man has got a
title; he's always Comte de Forcheville!" he let the words slip delicately
from his lips, as though, familiar with every page of the history of that
dignity, he were making a scrupulously exact estimate of its value, in
relation to others of the sort.
"I don't mind saying," Mme. Verdurin went on, "that he saw fit to utter
some most venomous, and quite absurd insinuations against Brichot.
Naturally, once he saw that Brichot was popular in this house, it was a
way of hitting back at us, of spoiling our party.
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