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.