de Charlus and Morel, as he might have spoken of a man and his mistress: “Have they been long together?” But, too much the man of the world to let the parties concerned see what was in his mind, prepared, should any gossip arise among Morel’s fellow-students, to rebuke them, and to reassure Morel by saying to him in a fatherly tone: “One hears that sort of thing about everybody nowadays,” he did not cease to load the Baron with civilities which the latter thought charming, but quite natural, being incapable of suspecting the eminent maestro of so much vice or of so much virtue. For the things that were said behind M.