“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:
“There was once a King and a Queen. Oh! how happy I am!”
That said, she made a curtsey to Marius and to Jean Valjean.
“There,” said she, “I am going to install myself near you in an easy-chair, we breakfast in half an hour, you shall say anything you like, I know well that men must talk, and I will be very good.”
Marius took her by the arm and said lovingly to her:
“We are talking business.”
“By the way,” said Cosette, “I have opened my window, a flock of pierrots has arrived in the garden—Birds, not maskers. Today is Ash-Wednesday; but not for the birds.”