314 MARCEL PROUST
In March Proust felt obliged to give a series of dinners of
gratitude at 45 Rue de Courcelles, the first for Calmette, another
for Vallette, another for Cardane, secretary of Le Figaro, and yet
others for Mme Lemaire, who was to be the subject of one of his
forthcoming salon articles, and Hervieu, whom he had been
meeting frequently with Lauris and the Bibescos at Mme de
Pierrebourg's. These, no doubt, are the 'little dinners' to which
he vengefully refrained from inviting 'M'. He had planned
Calmette's dinner ('he would like to meet smart people') in
January, but had been persuaded by his mother to postpone it till
after Robert's wedding. When March came, however, Mme
Proust was no better pleased with what she insultingly called
'this dinner of cocottes'; to Marcel's fury she used it as a menace
to enforce a reform of his hours; 'if you don't change your hours,
you shan't have your dinner!' He threatened to give it in a
restaurant-'when I put myself in your place and imagine myself
refusing you not one, but even a hundred dinners !'-but,
although the sequel remains unknown, it is likely that he had his
way. He did not know how little time the parents he exhausted
with these exactions had still to live.