arable purity of her beautiful,
chaste, and smiling brow. She was at the age when the virgin bears her
love as the angel his lily. So Jean Valjean was at ease. And then, when
two lovers have come to an understanding, things always go well; the
third party who might disturb their love is kept in a state of perfect
blindness by a restricted number of precautions which are always the
same in the case of all lovers. Thus, Cosette never objected to any of
Jean Valjean's proposals. Did she want to take a walk? "Yes, dear little
father." Did she want to stay at home? Very good. Did he wish to pass
the evening with Cosette? She was delighted. As he always went to bed at
ten o'clock, Marius did not come to the garden on such occasions until
after that hour, when, from the street, he heard Cosette open the long
glass door on the veranda. Of course, no one ever met Marius in the
daytime. Jean Valjean never even dreamed any longer that Marius was in
existence. Only once, one morning, he chanced to say to Cosette: "Why,
you have whitewash on your back!" On the previous evening, Marius, in a
transport, had pushed Cosette against the wall.

Old Toussaint, who retired early, thought of nothing but her sleep, and
was as ignorant of the whole matter as Jean Valjean.

Marius never set foot in the house. When he was with Cosette, they hid
themselves in a recess near the steps, in order that they might neither
be seen nor heard from the street, and there they sat, frequently
contenting themselves, by way of conversation, with pressing each
other's hands twenty times a minute as they gazed at the branches of the
trees. At such times, a thunderbolt might have fallen thirty paces from
them, and they would not have noticed it, so deeply was the revery of
the one absorbed and sunk in the revery of the other.

Limpid purity. Hours wholly white; almost all alike. This sort of love
is a recollection of lily petals and the plumage of the dove.

The whole extent of the garden lay between them and the street. Every
time that Marius entered and left, he carefully adjusted the bar of the
gate in such a manner that no displacement was visible.

He usually went away about midnight, and returned to Courfeyrac's
lodgings. Courfeyrac said to Bahorel:--

"Would you believe it? Marius comes home nowadays at one o'clock in the
morning."

Bahorel replied:--

"What do you expect? There's always a petard in a seminary fellow."

At times, Courfeyrac folde