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Then gradually reappeared and rose before him, softly radiant, the face of the other Odette, of that Odette who al^o turned with a smile to Forcheville, but with a smile in which there was nothing but affection for Swann, when she said: "You mustn't stay long, for this gentleman doesn't much like my having visitors when he's here.
For his days, Swann must pass them without Odette; and as he told himself, now and then, to allow so pretty a woman to go out by herself in Paris was just as rash as to leave a case filled with jewels in the middle of the street. In this mood he would scowl furiously at the passers-by, as though they were so many pickpockets.
The detective looked round at his assistant, and the expression of his face was set in its hardest mask. "Whiteside," he said quietly, "swear out a warrant for the arrest of Odette Rider on a charge of wilful murder. Telegraph all stations to detain this girl, and let me know the result." Without another word he turned from the room and walked back to his lodgings.
"Look here, I won't have you saying nasty things about Odette," broke in Mme. Verdurin in her 'spoiled child' manner. "She is charming." "There's no reason why she shouldn't be charming; we are not saying anything nasty about her, only that she is not the embodiment of either virtue or intellect. After all," he turned to the painter, "does it matter so very much whether she is virtuous or not?
Then, to this other Odette, he would ask himself what could have induced him to write that outrageous letter, of which, probably, until then, she had never supposed him capable, a letter which must have lowered him from the high, from the supreme place which, by his generosity, by his loyalty, he had won for himself in her esteem.
Milburgh, since he had seen no newspapers that day. "Listen," Sam went on. "Have you ever loved anybody?" Mr. Milburgh was silent. To him Odette Rider was nothing, but about the woman Odette Rider had called mother and the woman he called wife, circled the one precious sentiment in his life. "Yes, I think I have," he said after a pause. "Why?"
Swann was genuinely astonished, for he supposed that his name was never uttered in the Verdurins' presence. "You see," Mme. Cottard went on, "Mme. de Crecy was there; need I say more? When Odette is anywhere it's never long before she begins talking about you. And you know quite well, it isn't nasty things she says. What! you don't believe me!" she went on, noticing that Svrann looked sceptical.
One day, when reflections of this order had brought him once again to the memory of the time when some one had spoken to him of Odette as of a 'kept' woman, and when, once again, he had amused himself with contrasting that strange personification, the 'kept' woman an iridescent mixture of unknown and demoniacal qualities, embroidered, as in some fantasy of Gustave Moreau, with poison-dripping flowers, interwoven with precious jewels with that Odette upon whose face he had watched the passage of the same expressions of pity for a sufferer, resentment of an act of injustice, gratitude for an act of kindness, which he had seen, in earlier days, on his own mother's face, and on the faces of friends; that Odette, whose conversation had so frequently turned on the things that he himself knew better than anyone, his collections, his room, his old servant, his banker, who kept all his title-deeds and bonds; the thought of the banker reminded him that he must call on him shortly, to draw some money.
And then, while she was making them some orangeade, suddenly, just as when the reflector of a lamp that is badly fitted begins by casting all round an object, on the wall beyond it, huge and fantastic shadows which, in time, contract and are lost in the shadow of the object itself, all the terrible and disturbing ideas which he had formed of Odette melted away and vanished in the charming creature who stood there before his eyes.
I almost wish sometimes that I could keep him out of gaol; but if I did so, and converted him into a dull, respectable person, I should miss these delicious experiences which his worship affords. It is good to bask in the bright sunlight of his adoration! I talked to him of Odette. A strange matter to discuss with a lout, but he was so wonderful a listener! I exaggerated, the temptation was great.
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