had come in his old coat, now he wore his new one every day; Jean Valjean was not sure that he did not have his hair curled, his eyes were very queer, he wore gloves; in short, Jean Valjean cordially detested this young man.
Cosette allowed nothing to be divined.
Without knowing just what was the matter with her she was convinced that there was something in it, and that it must be concealed.
There was a coincidence between the taste for the toilet which had recently come to Cosette, and the habit of new clothes developed by that stranger which was very repugnant to Jean Valjean.
It might be accidental, no doubt, certainly, but it was a menacing accident.
He never opened his mouth to Cosette about this stranger.
One day, however, he could not refrain from so doing, and, with that vague despair which suddenly casts the lead into the depths of its despair, he said to her:
"What a very pedantic air that young man has!"
Cosette, but a year before only an indifferent little girl, would have replied:
"Why, no, he is charming."
Ten years later, with the love of Marius in her heart, she would have answered: "A pedant, and insufferable to the sight!
You are right!"-- At the moment in life and the heart which she had then attained, she contented herself with replying, with supreme calmness: "That young man!"