mits 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 learning a history.

In order to get rid of this curiosity which agitated her a little beyond
her wont, she took refuge in her talents, and set about scalloping,
with one layer of cotton after another, one of those embroideries of the
Empire and the Restoration, in which there are numerous cart-wheels.
The work was clumsy, the worker cross. She had been seated at this for
several hours when the door opened. Mademoiselle Gillenormand raised
her nose. Lieutenant Theodule stood before her, making the regulation
salute. She uttered a cry of delight. One may be old, one may be a
prude, one may be pious, one may be an aunt, but it is always agreeable
to see a lancer enter one's chamber.

"You here, Theodule!" she exclaimed.

"On my way through town, aunt."

"Embrace me."

"Here goes!" said Theodule.

And he kissed her. Aunt Gillenormand went to her writing-desk and opened
it.

"You will remain with us a week at least?"

"I leave this very evening, aunt."

"It is not possible!"

"Mathematically!"

"Remain, my little Theodule, I beseech you."

"My heart says 'yes,' but my orders say 'no.' The matter is simple.
They are changing our garrison; we have been at Melun, we are being
transferred to Gaillon. It is necessary to pass through Paris in order
to get from the old post to the new one. I said: 'I am going to see my
aunt.'"