“Jeanne,” she demanded one day, “why are you away so much when I desire you?  I have often seen you and that young man yonder in very close conversation.  Since I stand with you as your guardian and protector, I feel it my duty to inquire, although it is not in the least my pleasure.  You must have a care.”

“Madame,” expostulated Jeanne, “it is nothing, I assure you. Rien du tout—­jamais de la vie, Madame.”

“Perhaps, but it is of such nothings that troubles sometimes come.  Tell, me, what has this young man said to you?”

“But, Madame!—­”

“Tell me.  It is quite my right to demand it.”

“But he has said many things, Madame.”

“As, for instance, that you please him, that you are beautiful, that you have a voice and hand, a turn of the arm—­that you have the manner Parisienne—­Jeanne, is it not so?”

“But, yes, Madame, and indeed more.  I find that young man of excellent judgment, of most discriminating taste.”

“And also of sufficient boldness to express the same to you, is it not so, Jeanne?”

“Madame, the strong are brave.  I do not deny.  Also he is of an excellent cooperage business in St. Genevieve yonder.  Moreover, I find the produce of the grape in this country to increase yearly, so that the business seems to be of a certain future, Madame.  His community is well founded, the oldest in this portion of the valley.  He is young, he has no entanglements—­at least, so far as I discover.  He has an excellent home with his old mother.  Ah, well!  Madame, one might do worse.”

“So, then, a cooperage business so promising as that, Jeanne, seems more desirable than my own poor employment?  You have no regard for your duty to one who has cared for you, I suppose?  You desert me precisely at the time my own affairs require my presence in Washington.”

“But, Madame, why Washington?  Is that our home?  What actual home has madame on the face of the earth?  Ah, Heaven!—­were only it possible that this man were to be considered.  This place so large, so beautiful, so in need of a mistress to control it.  Madame says she was carried away against her will. Mon Dieu!  All my life have I dreamed—­have I hoped—­that some time a man should steal me, to carry me away to some place such as this!  And to make love of such a warmness!  Ah, Mon Dieu!

“Behold, Madame,” she went on, “France itself is not more beautiful than this country.  There is richness here, large lands.  That young man Hector, he says that none in the country is so rich as Mr. Dunwodee—­he does not know how rich he is himself.  And such romance!”

“Jeanne, I forbid you to continue!” The eyes of her mistress had a dangerous sparkle.