Perhaps this is it."
At the same time he bent down and seemed to be searching on the floor for a moment.
"Exactly; here it is," he went on, straightening himself up.
And he held out a silver coin to the Thenardier.
"Yes, that's it," said she.
It was not it, for it was a twenty-sou piece; but the Thenardier found it to her advantage.
She put the coin in her pocket, and confined herself to casting a fierce glance at the child, accompanied with the remark, "Don't let this ever happen again!"
Cosette returned to what the Thenardier called "her kennel," and her large eyes, which were riveted on the traveller, began to take on an expression such as they had never worn before. Thus far it was only an innocent amazement, but a sort of stupefied confidence was mingled with it.
"By the way, would you like some supper?" the Thenardier inquired of the traveller.
He made no reply.
He appeared to be absorbed in thought.
"What sort of a man is that?" she muttered between her teeth. "He's some frightfully poor wretch.
He hasn't a sou to pay for a supper.
Will he even pay me for his lodging?
It's very lucky, all the same, that it did not occur to him to steal the money that was on the floor."
In the meantime, a door had opened, and Eponine and Azelma entered.
They were two really pretty little girls, more bourgeois than peasant in looks, and very charming; the one with shining chestnut tresses, the other with long black braids hanging down her back, both vivacious, neat, plump, rosy, and healthy, and a delight to the eye.
They were warmly clad, but with so much maternal art that the thickness of the stuffs did not detract from the coquetry of arrangement.
There was a hint of winter, though the springtime was not wholly effaced.
Light emanated from these two little beings. Besides this, they were on the throne.