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.
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