In Search of Lost Time [volumes 1 to 7]

by Marcel Proust

On this account my presence aroused her attention and excited her cupidity, just as might a new way of decorating the dinner-table with festoons of fruit, uncertain as she was which of the two it might be — the table decorations or my presence — that was the more distinctively one of those charms, the secret of the success of Oriane’s parties, and in her uncertainty firmly resolved to try at her own next dinner-party to introduce them both.