However, she did not allow Jean Valjean to perceive anything of this, except her pallor.
She still wore her sweet face for him.
This pallor sufficed but too thoroughly to trouble Jean Valjean. Sometimes he asked her:—
“What is the matter with you?”
She replied: “There is nothing the matter with me.”
And after a silence, when she divined that he was sad also, she would add:—
“And you, father—is there anything wrong with you?”
“With me? Nothing,” said he.
These two beings who had loved each other so exclusively, and with so touching an affection, and who had lived so long for each other now suffered side by side, each on the other’s account; without acknowledging it to each other, without anger towards each other, and with a smile.