“I will wager that you are talking politics. How stupid that is, instead of being with me!”
Jean Valjean shuddered.
“Cosette! . . .” stammered Marius.
And he paused. One would have said that they were two criminals.
Cosette, who was radiant, continued to gaze at both of them. There was something in her eyes like gleams of paradise.
“I have caught you in the very act,” said Cosette. “Just now, I heard my father Fauchelevent through the door saying: ‘Conscience . . . doing my duty . . .’ That is politics, indeed it is. I will not have it. People should not talk politics the very next day. It is not right.”
“You are mistaken. Cosette,” said Marius, “we are talking business. We are discussing the best investment of your six hundred thousand francs . . .”
“That is not it at all,” interrupted Cosette. “I am coming. Does anybody want me here?”
And, passing resolutely through the door, she entered the drawing-room. She was dressed in a voluminous white dressing-gown, with a thousand folds and large sleeves which, starting from the neck, fell to her feet. In the golden heavens of some ancient gothic pictures, there are these charming sacks fit to clothe the angels.
She contemplated herself from head to foot in a long mirror, then exclaimed, in an outburst of ineffable ecstasy: