Verdurin’s footmen: “Isn’t he the Baron’s mistress?”), persons of whom he had little personal experience; imagined that this stroking of his hand was the immediate prelude to an act of violence in anticipation of which, the duel being a mere pretext, he had been enticed into a trap and led by the Baron into this remote apartment where he was about to be forcibly outraged. Not daring to stir from his chair, to which fear kept him glued, he rolled his eyes in terror, as though he had fallen into the hands of a savage who, for all he could tell, fed upon human flesh. At length M. de Charlus, releasing his hand and anxious to be hospitable to the end, said: “Won’t you come and take something with us, as the saying is, what in the old days used to be called a mazagran or a gloria , drinks that are no longer to be found, as archaeological curiosities, except in the plays of Labiche and the cafés of Doncières. A gloria