Prouvaire emerges from Musain with the usual overload of printed matter, ducking to avoid knocking his head on the low doorframe.

Eponine is lurking about outside, looking for her Monsieur Marius. When this overloaded boy drops a book, though, she picks it up for him and calls out in her much-abused voice, "Wait, m'sieur."

"Oh-- blast--" Prouvaire starts to lean down to retrieve the escapee, then blinks as it's handed to him. "Oh. Thank you." He offers the gamine a bemused smile.

Eponine smiles back. She really is pretty, under the dirt and grime and sickness. "De rien." She glances at the door of le Musain. It's rather obvious that Marius isn't going to be around today. She's been waiting hours already. "You should be more careful," she advises, nearly sagely. "Want me to walk with you, in case you drop somethin' else?"

Prouvaire blinks. He is not quite sure whether to be touched, or offended, or merely baffled. Sentimentality wins out, however, and dictates the former. He smiles at her again, awkwardly. "That would be very kind of you, mademoiselle... ?"

Eponine doesn't have many nice boys smile at her. She blushes. "Just Eponine, m'sieur."

Prouvaire balances his books precariously in one arm, and offers the hand thus freed. "Then I'm Jehan. Pleased to meet you."

Eponine shakes the proffered hand. "It's nice to meet you." She looks quizzically at all of his books. "Do you read all of those at once?"

The exchange nearly causes them all to go into the street again, but he catches them in time, laughing. "Good heavens, no. No. But, you know, I have to check things, and if I leave one at home I end up needing it..."

Eponine nods as if she knows what he's talking about. "I can read, you know," she says, apropos of precisely nothing.

Prouvaire blinks at her, a trifle confused for a moment. "Can you? That's good."

"It comes in handy," she adds, offhandedly. "You know, sometimes there's something you've just got to read, or write. I can do that too."

"Quite so," Prouvaire agrees, and flashes another diffident smile. "Good. Good for you. Girls ought to be educated," he adds, in an effort to add something useful to the conversation.

Eponine laughs. It rasps in her throat. "I'm not educated, really. Haven't had a lesson in yonks. I just know a few things."

Prouvaire chuckles a bit. "That's the best place to start." He glances off down the street. Apologetically: "I should really be on my way..."

"I said I'd walk with you, din't I?" She seems quite prepared to do that. At least it will distract her from the continued absence of Marius.

"All right." Prouvaire adjusts the armload of books again, half-smiles at her, and starts off down the street. "You, er, live nearby?"

Eponine looks around the street. "No, not really. But I'm just out for a stroll anyhow."

Prouvaire nods, taking this at face value. "I see."

Eponine demonstrates by starting to walk. "'sides, if you drop something, you might need help pickin' it up."

"Right," he says after a moment.

The girl is stopped suddenly by another voice, even more unpleasant than her own. "Eponine!"

Eponine looks frightened. "I didn't think she'd be around," she says in an almost timorous voice.

Prouvaire glances up in surprise, and pauses. "Who?"

"Maman." The figure barreling down the street does not resemble this gentle, maternal epithet at all. She is a very large woman who is even more unkempt than her daughter, taller than M. Prouvaire and possessed of a deeper voice than his.

It takes him a minute to resolve this apparition with the statement. "Ah," is all he can manage to say in response, and blinks.

Mme. Thenardier takes hold of her daughter by the ear. "What are you doing wandering down this street with this..." she takes in the not terribly shabby state of Prouvaire's attire, and simpers. It's frightening when she simpers, "sweet young man?"

Prouvaire winces slightly at this treatment of his erstwhile companion. "Bonjour, madame," he says politely, and doesn't even stammer. Much. "Eponine had just... very kindly offered to, er, walk with me..."

Eponine answers meekly, "Just walking, Maman."

Mme. Thenardier scowls at both of them. "Walking, hmmm?" She looks at Prouvaire again, trying to estimate the thickness of his wallet. "That's all right, then."

Prouvaire is dreamy and idealistic, but not overwhelmingly naive. He catches the appraising look, and draws himself up a little. It doesn't do him much good against Maman's bulk, but the effort is made. "I am glad you approve, madame." If he was Enjolras, this might be said with hauteur, but all Prouvaire invests it with is a kind of forlorn dignity. He pauses,
then, trying to figure out a polite way of asking a woman to unhand her daughter.

Mme. Thenardier saves him the trouble by giving Eponine's ear one last tug, then letting her go. "Well, you just go on walkin', then. And see you bring home dinner." Her husband has been trying to teach her to sound forlorn. "Your sister's looking mighty thin."

Eponine nods. "I know, Maman. Poor 'zelma. I'll try to bring somethin' home." She edges away out of immediate reach.

Prouvaire has no idea what to say. There's the standard 'Your daughter is safe with me', but in this instance he would probably get laughed at. 'Have a nice day' also seems to be out. He tries, "It was a pleasure to
meet you, madame," but it comes out rather half-heartedly.

Mme. Thenardier grunts in surprise. "Yeah, sure, you too," she answers, and guffaws as she continues down the street away from Eponine and this eligible -- not to say gullible -- young man she has found.

Prouvaire blinks after her. The encounter has thoroughly unsettled him, and not even in a pleasantly conscience-ridden sort of unsettlement, except for the ailing young sister. "Well," he says, and attempts to smile again at Eponine. "Shall we?"

Eponine smiles. "Sure."

So Prouvaire starts off again, coming perilously close to dropping his books again with the extremity of his nervousness.