Madeleine is the protagonist of the novel, the narrator of the first-person segments and the central figure of the third-person portions. She is 13 when she first sees Colonel John Jacob Astor, 17 when she meets him. Given her age, Madeleine is not yet “out” in terms of her social debut, one reason that Jack takes his time courting her and wants to wait to announce their engagement.

The younger daughter of a successful businessman and a socially conscious but kind-hearted mother, Madeleine has been taught how to behave like a lady. Nonetheless, she would prefer to be active: “She wanted a gallop, not a trot. She wanted the sun burning her face, the wind whipping at her hair, rather than the soft, safe comfort of salons and tea parties and early evening soirees” (19). In some ways, falling in love with Jack is an adventure for her; he embodies the action, the adventure, the curiosity that she wants for her own life. Madeleine is a dutiful daughter, and she has a close relationship with her elder sister, Katherine; they are “alike and not, a matched pair and not, two halves of a whole as only sisters could be” (133).