Swann's Way

for beautiful things," saying that she would know him better when
once she had seen him in his 'home,' where she imagined him to be "so
comfortable with his tea and his books"; although she had not concealed
her surprise at his being in that part of the town, which must be so
depressing, and was "not nearly smart enough for such a very smart man."
And when he allowed her to come she had said to him as she left how
sorry she was to have stayed so short a time in a house into which she
was so glad to have found her way at last, speaking of him as though he
had meant something more to her than the rest of the people she knew,
and appearing to unite their two selves with a kind of romantic bond
which had made him smile. But at the time of life, tinged already with
disenchantment, which Swann was approaching, when a man can content
himself with being in love for the pleasure of loving without expecting
too much in return, this linking of hearts, if it is no longer, as in
early youth, the goal towards which love, of necessity, tends, still
is bound to love by so strong an association of ideas that it may well
become the cause of love if it presents itself first. In his younger