Swann's Way

"But we don't suppose for a moment that you're exaggerating; we only
want you to go on with your dinner, and my husband too. Give M. Biche
some more sole, can't you see his has got cold? We're not in any hurry;
you're dashing round as if the house was on fire. Wait a little; don't
serve the salad just yet."

Mme. Cottard, who was a shy woman and spoke but seldom, was not lacking,
for all that, in self-assurance when a happy inspiration put the right
word in her mouth. She felt that it would be well received; the thought
gave her confidence, and what she was doing was done with the object not
so much of shining herself, as of helping her husband on in his career.
And so she did not allow the word 'salad,' which Mme. Verdurin had just
uttered, to pass unchallenged.

"It's not a Japanese salad, is it?" she whispered, turning towards
Odette.

And then, in her joy and confusion at the combination of neatness
and daring which there had been in making so discreet and yet so
unmistakable an allusion to the new and brilliantly successful play by
Dumas, she broke down in a charming, girlish laugh, not very loud, but
so irresistible that it was some time before she could control it.