Mme. Swann turned to me: “Then it’s all over?” she put it to me, “You aren’t ever coming to see Gilberte again? I’m glad you make an exception of me, and are not going to ‘drop’ me straight away. I like seeing you, but I used to like also the influence you had over my daughter. I’m sure she’s very sorry about it, too. However, I mustn’t bully you, or you’ll make up your mind at once that you never want to set eyes on me again.” “Odette, Sagan’s trying to speak to you!” Swann called his wife’s attention. And there, indeed, was the Prince, as in some transformation scene at the close of a play, or in a circus, or an old painting, wheeling his horse round so as to face her, in a magnificent heroic pose, and doffing his hat with a sweeping theatrical and, so to speak, allegorical flourish in which he displayed all the chivalrous courtesy of a great noble bowing in token of his respect for Woman, were she incarnate in a woman whom it was impossible for his mother or his sister to know. And at every moment, recognised in the depths of the liquid transparency and of the luminous glaze of the shadow which her parasol cast over her, Mme.