aughter 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.