ble, and exclaimed in his most irritated and vibrating tone:--

"Poor Marius, do you say! That gentleman is a knave, a wretched
scoundrel, a vain little ingrate, a heartless, soulless, haughty, and
wicked man!"

And he turned away so that his daughter might not see the tear that
stood in his eye.

Three days later he broke a silence which had lasted four hours, to say
to his daughter point-blank:--

"I had the honor to ask Mademoiselle Gillenormand never to mention him
to me."

Aunt Gillenormand renounced every effort, and pronounced this acute
diagnosis: "My father never cared very much for my sister after her
folly. It is clear that he detests Marius."

"After her folly" meant: "after she had married the colonel."

However, as the reader has been able to conjecture, Mademoiselle
Gillenormand had failed in her attempt to substitute her favorite, the
officer of lancers, for Marius. The substitute, Theodule, had not been a
success. M. Gillenormand had not accepted the quid pro quo. A vacancy
in the heart does not accommodate itself to a stop-gap. Theodule, on his
side, though he scented the inheritance, was disgusted at the task
of pleasing. The goodman bored the lancer; and the lancer shocked the
goodman. Lieutenant Theodule was gay, no doubt, but a chatter-box,
frivolous, but vulgar; a high liver, but a frequenter of bad company; he
had mistresses, it is true, and he had a great deal to say about them,
it is true also; but he talked badly. All his good qualities had a
defect. M. Gillenormand was worn out with hearing him tell about the
love affairs that he had in the vicinity of the barracks in the Rue
de Babylone. And then, Lieutenant Gillenormand sometimes came in his
uniform, with the tricolored cockade. This rendered him downright
intolerable. Finally, Father Gillenormand had said to his daughter:
"I've had enough of that Theodule. I haven't much taste for warriors
in time of peace. Receive him if you choose. I don't know but I prefer
slashers to fellows that drag their swords. The clash of blades in
battle is less dismal, after all, than the clank of the scabbard on
the pavement. And then, throwing out your chest like a bully and
lacing yourself like a girl, with stays under your cuirass, is doubly
ridiculous. When one is a veritable man, one holds equally aloof
from swagger and from affected airs. He is neither a blusterer nor a
finnicky-hearted man. Keep your Theodule for yourself."

It was in vain tha