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 Théodule 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 moustache 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 Théodule 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: 'This is too much! '—and this interrogation: 'But where is it that he goes?
' She espied some adventure of the heart, more or less illicit, a woman in the shadow, a rendezvous, a mystery, and she would not have been sorry to thrust her spectacles into the affair.
Tasting a mystery resembles getting the first flavor of a scandal; sainted souls do not detest this. There is some curiosity about scandal in the secret compartments of bigotry. So she was the prey of a vague appetite for