"Yes," replied the mother.
"What time is it?"
"Nearly six. The half-hour struck from Saint-Medard a while ago."
"The devil!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jondrette; "the children must go and watch. Come you, do you listen here."
A whispering ensued.
Jondrette"s voice became audible again:--
"Has old Bougon left?"
"Yes," said the mother.
"Are you sure that there is no one in our neighbor"s room?"
"He has not been in all day, and you know very well that this is his dinner hour."
"You are sure?"
"Sure."
"All the same," said Jondrette, "there"s no harm in going to see whether he is there. Here, my girl, take the candle and go there."
Marius fell on his hands and knees and crawled silently under his bed.
Hardly had he concealed himself, when he perceived a light through the crack of his door.
"P"pa," cried a voice, "he is not in here."
He recognized the voice of the eldest daughter.
"Did you go in?" demanded her father.
"No," replied the girl, "but as his key is in the door, he must be out."
The father exclaimed:--
"Go in, nevertheless."
The door opened, and Marius saw the tall Jondrette come in with a candle in her hand. She was as she had been in the morning, only still more repulsive in this light.
She walked straight up to the bed. Marius endured an indescribable moment of anxiety; but near the bed there was a mirror nailed to the wall, and it was thither that she was directing her steps. She raised herself on tiptoe and looked at herself in it. In the neighboring room, the sound of iron articles being moved was audible.
She smoothed her hair with the palm of her hand, and smiled into the mirror, humming with her cracked and sepulchral voice:--
Nos amours ont dure toute une semaine,[28]
Mais que du bonheur les instants sont courts!
S"adorer huit jours, c" etait bien la peine!
Le temps des amours devait durer toujours!
Devrait durer toujours! devrait durer toujours!
In the meantime, Marius trembled. It seemed impossible to him that she should not hear his breathing.
She stepped to the window and looked out with the half-foolish way she had.
"How ugly Paris is when it has put on a white chemise!" said she.
She returned to the mirror and began again to put on airs before it, scrutinizing herself full-face and three-quarters face in turn.
"Well!" cried her father, "what are you about there?"
"I am looking under the bed and the furniture," she replied, continuing to arrange her hair; "there"s no one here."
"b.o.o.by!" yelled her father. "Come here this minute! And don"t waste any time about it!"
"Coming! Coming!" said she. "One has no time for anything in this hovel!"
She hummed:--
Vous me quittez pour aller a la gloire;[29]
Mon triste coeur suivra partout.
She cast a parting glance in the mirror and went out, shutting the door behind her.
A moment more, and Marius heard the sound of the two young girls" bare feet in the corridor, and Jondrette"s voice shouting to them:--
"Pay strict heed! One on the side of the barrier, the other at the corner of the Rue du Pet.i.t-Banquier. Don"t lose sight for a moment of the door of this house, and the moment you see anything, rush here on the instant! as hard as you can go! You have a key to get in."
The eldest girl grumbled:--
"The idea of standing watch in the snow barefoot!"
"To-morrow you shall have some dainty little green silk boots!" said the father.
They ran down stairs, and a few seconds later the shock of the outer door as it banged to announced that they were outside.
There now remained in the house only Marius, the Jondrettes and probably, also, the mysterious persons of whom Marius had caught a glimpse in the twilight, behind the door of the unused attic.
CHAPTER XVII--THE USE MADE OF MARIUS" FIVE-FRANC PIECE
Marius decided that the moment had now arrived when he must resume his post at his observatory. In a twinkling, and with the agility of his age, he had reached the hole in the part.i.tion.