"In love!
I know all about it."
From time to time Marius absented himself.
"Where is it that he goes off like this?" said his aunt.
On one of these trips, which were always very brief, he went to Montfermeil, in order to obey the injunction which his father had left him, and he sought the old sergeant to Waterloo, the inn-keeper Thenardier.
Thenardier had failed, the inn was closed, and no one knew what had become of him. Marius was away from the house for four days on this quest.
"He is getting decidedly wild," said his grandfather.
They thought they had noticed that he wore something on his breast, under his shirt, which was attached to his neck by a black ribbon.
BOOK THIRD.--THE GRANDFATHER AND THE GRANDSON
CHAPTER VII
We have mentioned a lancer.
He was a great-grand-nephew of M. Gillenormand, on the paternal side, who led a garrison life, outside the family and far from the domestic hearth.
Lieutenant Theodule Gillenormand fulfilled all the conditions required to make what is called a fine officer. He had "a lady's waist," a victorious manner of trailing his sword and of twirling his mustache in a hook.
He visited Paris very rarely, and so rarely that Marius had never seen him. The cousins knew each other only by name.
We think we have said that Theodule was the favorite of Aunt Gillenormand, who preferred him because she did not see him.
Not seeing people permits one to attribute to them all possible perfections.
One morning, Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder returned to her apartment as much disturbed as her placidity was capable of allowing. Marius had just asked his grandfather's permission to take a little trip, adding that he meant to set out that very evening. "Go!" had been his grandfather's reply, and M. Gillenormand had added in an aside, as he raised his eyebrows to the top of his forehead:
"Here he is passing the night out again." Mademoiselle Gillenormand had ascended to her chamber greatly puzzled, and on the staircase had dropped this exclamation: