And, disengaging the hand which Marius held, he added, with a sort of inexorable dignity:

“Moreover, the friend to whom I have recourse is the doing of my duty; and I need but one pardon, that of my conscience.”

At that moment, a door at the other end of the drawing-room opened gently halfway, and in the opening Cosette’s head appeared. They saw only her sweet face, her hair was in charming disorder, her eyelids were still swollen with sleep. She made the movement of a bird, which thrusts its head out of its nest, glanced first at her husband, then at Jean Valjean, and cried to them with a smile, so that they seemed to behold a smile at the heart of a rose:

“I will wager that you are talking politics. How stupid that is, instead of being with me!”

Jean Valjean shuddered.

“Cosette!⁠ ⁠…” stammered Marius.