diff options
Diffstat (limited to '208.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 208.txt | 2918 |
1 files changed, 2918 insertions, 0 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,2918 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Daisy Miller, by Henry James + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Daisy Miller + +Author: Henry James + +Release Date: July 3, 2008 [EBook #208] +[Last updated: May 13, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAISY MILLER *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss + + + + + +DAISY MILLER: A STUDY + +IN TWO PARTS + +The text is that of the first American appearance in book form, 1879. + + + + + +PART I + + +At the little town of Vevey, in Switzerland, there is a particularly +comfortable hotel. There are, indeed, many hotels, for the entertainment +of tourists is the business of the place, which, as many travelers will +remember, is seated upon the edge of a remarkably blue lake--a lake that +it behooves every tourist to visit. The shore of the lake presents an +unbroken array of establishments of this order, of every category, from +the "grand hotel" of the newest fashion, with a chalk-white front, a +hundred balconies, and a dozen flags flying from its roof, to the little +Swiss pension of an elder day, with its name inscribed in German-looking +lettering upon a pink or yellow wall and an awkward summerhouse in the +angle of the garden. One of the hotels at Vevey, however, is famous, +even classical, being distinguished from many of its upstart neighbors +by an air both of luxury and of maturity. In this region, in the month +of June, American travelers are extremely numerous; it may be said, +indeed, that Vevey assumes at this period some of the characteristics +of an American watering place. There are sights and sounds which evoke a +vision, an echo, of Newport and Saratoga. There is a flitting hither +and thither of "stylish" young girls, a rustling of muslin flounces, +a rattle of dance music in the morning hours, a sound of high-pitched +voices at all times. You receive an impression of these things at the +excellent inn of the "Trois Couronnes" and are transported in fancy to +the Ocean House or to Congress Hall. But at the "Trois Couronnes," it +must be added, there are other features that are much at variance with +these suggestions: neat German waiters, who look like secretaries of +legation; Russian princesses sitting in the garden; little Polish boys +walking about held by the hand, with their governors; a view of the +sunny crest of the Dent du Midi and the picturesque towers of the Castle +of Chillon. + +I hardly know whether it was the analogies or the differences that were +uppermost in the mind of a young American, who, two or three years ago, +sat in the garden of the "Trois Couronnes," looking about him, rather +idly, at some of the graceful objects I have mentioned. It was a +beautiful summer morning, and in whatever fashion the young American +looked at things, they must have seemed to him charming. He had come +from Geneva the day before by the little steamer, to see his aunt, who +was staying at the hotel--Geneva having been for a long time his place +of residence. But his aunt had a headache--his aunt had almost always a +headache--and now she was shut up in her room, smelling camphor, so that +he was at liberty to wander about. He was some seven-and-twenty years +of age; when his friends spoke of him, they usually said that he was at +Geneva "studying." When his enemies spoke of him, they said--but, +after all, he had no enemies; he was an extremely amiable fellow, and +universally liked. What I should say is, simply, that when certain +persons spoke of him they affirmed that the reason of his spending so +much time at Geneva was that he was extremely devoted to a lady who +lived there--a foreign lady--a person older than himself. Very few +Americans--indeed, I think none--had ever seen this lady, about whom +there were some singular stories. But Winterbourne had an old attachment +for the little metropolis of Calvinism; he had been put to school there +as a boy, and he had afterward gone to college there--circumstances +which had led to his forming a great many youthful friendships. Many of +these he had kept, and they were a source of great satisfaction to him. + +After knocking at his aunt's door and learning that she was indisposed, +he had taken a walk about the town, and then he had come in to his +breakfast. He had now finished his breakfast; but he was drinking a +small cup of coffee, which had been served to him on a little table in +the garden by one of the waiters who looked like an attache. At last +he finished his coffee and lit a cigarette. Presently a small boy came +walking along the path--an urchin of nine or ten. The child, who was +diminutive for his years, had an aged expression of countenance, a pale +complexion, and sharp little features. He was dressed in knickerbockers, +with red stockings, which displayed his poor little spindle-shanks; +he also wore a brilliant red cravat. He carried in his hand a long +alpenstock, the sharp point of which he thrust into everything that +he approached--the flowerbeds, the garden benches, the trains of the +ladies' dresses. In front of Winterbourne he paused, looking at him with +a pair of bright, penetrating little eyes. + +"Will you give me a lump of sugar?" he asked in a sharp, hard little +voice--a voice immature and yet, somehow, not young. + +Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him, on which his coffee +service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugar remained. "Yes, +you may take one," he answered; "but I don't think sugar is good for +little boys." + +This little boy stepped forward and carefully selected three of +the coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of his +knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another place. He +poked his alpenstock, lance-fashion, into Winterbourne's bench and tried +to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth. + +"Oh, blazes; it's har-r-d!" he exclaimed, pronouncing the adjective in a +peculiar manner. + +Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he might have the honor +of claiming him as a fellow countryman. "Take care you don't hurt your +teeth," he said, paternally. + +"I haven't got any teeth to hurt. They have all come out. I have only +got seven teeth. My mother counted them last night, and one came out +right afterward. She said she'd slap me if any more came out. I can't +help it. It's this old Europe. It's the climate that makes them come +out. In America they didn't come out. It's these hotels." + +Winterbourne was much amused. "If you eat three lumps of sugar, your +mother will certainly slap you," he said. + +"She's got to give me some candy, then," rejoined his young +interlocutor. "I can't get any candy here--any American candy. American +candy's the best candy." + +"And are American little boys the best little boys?" asked Winterbourne. + +"I don't know. I'm an American boy," said the child. + +"I see you are one of the best!" laughed Winterbourne. + +"Are you an American man?" pursued this vivacious infant. And then, +on Winterbourne's affirmative reply--"American men are the best," he +declared. + +His companion thanked him for the compliment, and the child, who had +now got astride of his alpenstock, stood looking about him, while he +attacked a second lump of sugar. Winterbourne wondered if he himself +had been like this in his infancy, for he had been brought to Europe at +about this age. + +"Here comes my sister!" cried the child in a moment. "She's an American +girl." + +Winterbourne looked along the path and saw a beautiful young lady +advancing. "American girls are the best girls," he said cheerfully to +his young companion. + +"My sister ain't the best!" the child declared. "She's always blowing at +me." + +"I imagine that is your fault, not hers," said Winterbourne. The young +lady meanwhile had drawn near. She was dressed in white muslin, with a +hundred frills and flounces, and knots of pale-colored ribbon. She was +bareheaded, but she balanced in her hand a large parasol, with a deep +border of embroidery; and she was strikingly, admirably pretty. "How +pretty they are!" thought Winterbourne, straightening himself in his +seat, as if he were prepared to rise. + +The young lady paused in front of his bench, near the parapet of the +garden, which overlooked the lake. The little boy had now converted his +alpenstock into a vaulting pole, by the aid of which he was springing +about in the gravel and kicking it up not a little. + +"Randolph," said the young lady, "what ARE you doing?" + +"I'm going up the Alps," replied Randolph. "This is the way!" And he +gave another little jump, scattering the pebbles about Winterbourne's +ears. + +"That's the way they come down," said Winterbourne. + +"He's an American man!" cried Randolph, in his little hard voice. + +The young lady gave no heed to this announcement, but looked straight +at her brother. "Well, I guess you had better be quiet," she simply +observed. + +It seemed to Winterbourne that he had been in a manner presented. He +got up and stepped slowly toward the young girl, throwing away his +cigarette. "This little boy and I have made acquaintance," he said, with +great civility. In Geneva, as he had been perfectly aware, a young +man was not at liberty to speak to a young unmarried lady except under +certain rarely occurring conditions; but here at Vevey, what conditions +could be better than these?--a pretty American girl coming and standing +in front of you in a garden. This pretty American girl, however, on +hearing Winterbourne's observation, simply glanced at him; she then +turned her head and looked over the parapet, at the lake and the +opposite mountains. He wondered whether he had gone too far, but he +decided that he must advance farther, rather than retreat. While he was +thinking of something else to say, the young lady turned to the little +boy again. + +"I should like to know where you got that pole," she said. + +"I bought it," responded Randolph. + +"You don't mean to say you're going to take it to Italy?" + +"Yes, I am going to take it to Italy," the child declared. + +The young girl glanced over the front of her dress and smoothed out a +knot or two of ribbon. Then she rested her eyes upon the prospect again. +"Well, I guess you had better leave it somewhere," she said after a +moment. + +"Are you going to Italy?" Winterbourne inquired in a tone of great +respect. + +The young lady glanced at him again. "Yes, sir," she replied. And she +said nothing more. + +"Are you--a--going over the Simplon?" Winterbourne pursued, a little +embarrassed. + +"I don't know," she said. "I suppose it's some mountain. Randolph, what +mountain are we going over?" + +"Going where?" the child demanded. + +"To Italy," Winterbourne explained. + +"I don't know," said Randolph. "I don't want to go to Italy. I want to +go to America." + +"Oh, Italy is a beautiful place!" rejoined the young man. + +"Can you get candy there?" Randolph loudly inquired. + +"I hope not," said his sister. "I guess you have had enough candy, and +mother thinks so too." + +"I haven't had any for ever so long--for a hundred weeks!" cried the +boy, still jumping about. + +The young lady inspected her flounces and smoothed her ribbons again; +and Winterbourne presently risked an observation upon the beauty of the +view. He was ceasing to be embarrassed, for he had begun to perceive +that she was not in the least embarrassed herself. There had not been +the slightest alteration in her charming complexion; she was evidently +neither offended nor flattered. If she looked another way when he spoke +to her, and seemed not particularly to hear him, this was simply her +habit, her manner. Yet, as he talked a little more and pointed out some +of the objects of interest in the view, with which she appeared quite +unacquainted, she gradually gave him more of the benefit of her glance; +and then he saw that this glance was perfectly direct and unshrinking. +It was not, however, what would have been called an immodest glance, +for the young girl's eyes were singularly honest and fresh. They were +wonderfully pretty eyes; and, indeed, Winterbourne had not seen for +a long time anything prettier than his fair countrywoman's various +features--her complexion, her nose, her ears, her teeth. He had a great +relish for feminine beauty; he was addicted to observing and analyzing +it; and as regards this young lady's face he made several observations. +It was not at all insipid, but it was not exactly expressive; and +though it was eminently delicate, Winterbourne mentally accused it--very +forgivingly--of a want of finish. He thought it very possible that +Master Randolph's sister was a coquette; he was sure she had a spirit of +her own; but in her bright, sweet, superficial little visage there was +no mockery, no irony. Before long it became obvious that she was much +disposed toward conversation. She told him that they were going to Rome +for the winter--she and her mother and Randolph. She asked him if he was +a "real American"; she shouldn't have taken him for one; he seemed more +like a German--this was said after a little hesitation--especially when +he spoke. Winterbourne, laughing, answered that he had met Germans who +spoke like Americans, but that he had not, so far as he remembered, met +an American who spoke like a German. Then he asked her if she should not +be more comfortable in sitting upon the bench which he had just quitted. +She answered that she liked standing up and walking about; but she +presently sat down. She told him she was from New York State--"if you +know where that is." Winterbourne learned more about her by catching +hold of her small, slippery brother and making him stand a few minutes +by his side. + +"Tell me your name, my boy," he said. + +"Randolph C. Miller," said the boy sharply. "And I'll tell you her +name;" and he leveled his alpenstock at his sister. + +"You had better wait till you are asked!" said this young lady calmly. + +"I should like very much to know your name," said Winterbourne. + +"Her name is Daisy Miller!" cried the child. "But that isn't her real +name; that isn't her name on her cards." + +"It's a pity you haven't got one of my cards!" said Miss Miller. + +"Her real name is Annie P. Miller," the boy went on. + +"Ask him HIS name," said his sister, indicating Winterbourne. + +But on this point Randolph seemed perfectly indifferent; he continued to +supply information with regard to his own family. "My father's name is +Ezra B. Miller," he announced. "My father ain't in Europe; my father's +in a better place than Europe." + +Winterbourne imagined for a moment that this was the manner in which the +child had been taught to intimate that Mr. Miller had been removed to +the sphere of celestial reward. But Randolph immediately added, "My +father's in Schenectady. He's got a big business. My father's rich, you +bet!" + +"Well!" ejaculated Miss Miller, lowering her parasol and looking at +the embroidered border. Winterbourne presently released the child, +who departed, dragging his alpenstock along the path. "He doesn't like +Europe," said the young girl. "He wants to go back." + +"To Schenectady, you mean?" + +"Yes; he wants to go right home. He hasn't got any boys here. There is +one boy here, but he always goes round with a teacher; they won't let +him play." + +"And your brother hasn't any teacher?" Winterbourne inquired. + +"Mother thought of getting him one, to travel round with us. There was a +lady told her of a very good teacher; an American lady--perhaps you know +her--Mrs. Sanders. I think she came from Boston. She told her of this +teacher, and we thought of getting him to travel round with us. But +Randolph said he didn't want a teacher traveling round with us. He said +he wouldn't have lessons when he was in the cars. And we ARE in the cars +about half the time. There was an English lady we met in the cars--I +think her name was Miss Featherstone; perhaps you know her. She wanted +to know why I didn't give Randolph lessons--give him 'instruction,' she +called it. I guess he could give me more instruction than I could give +him. He's very smart." + +"Yes," said Winterbourne; "he seems very smart." + +"Mother's going to get a teacher for him as soon as we get to Italy. Can +you get good teachers in Italy?" + +"Very good, I should think," said Winterbourne. + +"Or else she's going to find some school. He ought to learn some more. +He's only nine. He's going to college." And in this way Miss Miller +continued to converse upon the affairs of her family and upon other +topics. She sat there with her extremely pretty hands, ornamented with +very brilliant rings, folded in her lap, and with her pretty eyes now +resting upon those of Winterbourne, now wandering over the garden, the +people who passed by, and the beautiful view. She talked to Winterbourne +as if she had known him a long time. He found it very pleasant. It was +many years since he had heard a young girl talk so much. It might have +been said of this unknown young lady, who had come and sat down beside +him upon a bench, that she chattered. She was very quiet; she sat in a +charming, tranquil attitude; but her lips and her eyes were constantly +moving. She had a soft, slender, agreeable voice, and her tone was +decidedly sociable. She gave Winterbourne a history of her movements +and intentions and those of her mother and brother, in Europe, and +enumerated, in particular, the various hotels at which they had stopped. +"That English lady in the cars," she said--"Miss Featherstone--asked me +if we didn't all live in hotels in America. I told her I had never been +in so many hotels in my life as since I came to Europe. I have never +seen so many--it's nothing but hotels." But Miss Miller did not make +this remark with a querulous accent; she appeared to be in the best +humor with everything. She declared that the hotels were very good, when +once you got used to their ways, and that Europe was perfectly sweet. +She was not disappointed--not a bit. Perhaps it was because she had +heard so much about it before. She had ever so many intimate friends +that had been there ever so many times. And then she had had ever so +many dresses and things from Paris. Whenever she put on a Paris dress +she felt as if she were in Europe. + +"It was a kind of a wishing cap," said Winterbourne. + +"Yes," said Miss Miller without examining this analogy; "it always made +me wish I was here. But I needn't have done that for dresses. I am sure +they send all the pretty ones to America; you see the most frightful +things here. The only thing I don't like," she proceeded, "is the +society. There isn't any society; or, if there is, I don't know where it +keeps itself. Do you? I suppose there is some society somewhere, but I +haven't seen anything of it. I'm very fond of society, and I have always +had a great deal of it. I don't mean only in Schenectady, but in New +York. I used to go to New York every winter. In New York I had lots of +society. Last winter I had seventeen dinners given me; and three of them +were by gentlemen," added Daisy Miller. "I have more friends in New York +than in Schenectady--more gentleman friends; and more young lady friends +too," she resumed in a moment. She paused again for an instant; she was +looking at Winterbourne with all her prettiness in her lively eyes and +in her light, slightly monotonous smile. "I have always had," she said, +"a great deal of gentlemen's society." + +Poor Winterbourne was amused, perplexed, and decidedly charmed. He +had never yet heard a young girl express herself in just this fashion; +never, at least, save in cases where to say such things seemed a kind of +demonstrative evidence of a certain laxity of deportment. And yet was he +to accuse Miss Daisy Miller of actual or potential inconduite, as they +said at Geneva? He felt that he had lived at Geneva so long that he +had lost a good deal; he had become dishabituated to the American tone. +Never, indeed, since he had grown old enough to appreciate things, had +he encountered a young American girl of so pronounced a type as this. +Certainly she was very charming, but how deucedly sociable! Was she +simply a pretty girl from New York State? Were they all like that, the +pretty girls who had a good deal of gentlemen's society? Or was she also +a designing, an audacious, an unscrupulous young person? Winterbourne +had lost his instinct in this matter, and his reason could not help him. +Miss Daisy Miller looked extremely innocent. Some people had told him +that, after all, American girls were exceedingly innocent; and others +had told him that, after all, they were not. He was inclined to think +Miss Daisy Miller was a flirt--a pretty American flirt. He had never, as +yet, had any relations with young ladies of this category. He had +known, here in Europe, two or three women--persons older than Miss Daisy +Miller, and provided, for respectability's sake, with husbands--who were +great coquettes--dangerous, terrible women, with whom one's relations +were liable to take a serious turn. But this young girl was not a +coquette in that sense; she was very unsophisticated; she was only a +pretty American flirt. Winterbourne was almost grateful for having found +the formula that applied to Miss Daisy Miller. He leaned back in his +seat; he remarked to himself that she had the most charming nose he had +ever seen; he wondered what were the regular conditions and limitations +of one's intercourse with a pretty American flirt. It presently became +apparent that he was on the way to learn. + +"Have you been to that old castle?" asked the young girl, pointing with +her parasol to the far-gleaming walls of the Chateau de Chillon. + +"Yes, formerly, more than once," said Winterbourne. "You too, I suppose, +have seen it?" + +"No; we haven't been there. I want to go there dreadfully. Of course I +mean to go there. I wouldn't go away from here without having seen that +old castle." + +"It's a very pretty excursion," said Winterbourne, "and very easy to +make. You can drive, you know, or you can go by the little steamer." + +"You can go in the cars," said Miss Miller. + +"Yes; you can go in the cars," Winterbourne assented. + +"Our courier says they take you right up to the castle," the young girl +continued. "We were going last week, but my mother gave out. She suffers +dreadfully from dyspepsia. She said she couldn't go. Randolph wouldn't +go either; he says he doesn't think much of old castles. But I guess +we'll go this week, if we can get Randolph." + +"Your brother is not interested in ancient monuments?" Winterbourne +inquired, smiling. + +"He says he don't care much about old castles. He's only nine. He +wants to stay at the hotel. Mother's afraid to leave him alone, and the +courier won't stay with him; so we haven't been to many places. But it +will be too bad if we don't go up there." And Miss Miller pointed again +at the Chateau de Chillon. + +"I should think it might be arranged," said Winterbourne. "Couldn't you +get some one to stay for the afternoon with Randolph?" + +Miss Miller looked at him a moment, and then, very placidly, "I wish YOU +would stay with him!" she said. + +Winterbourne hesitated a moment. "I should much rather go to Chillon +with you." + +"With me?" asked the young girl with the same placidity. + +She didn't rise, blushing, as a young girl at Geneva would have done; +and yet Winterbourne, conscious that he had been very bold, thought +it possible she was offended. "With your mother," he answered very +respectfully. + +But it seemed that both his audacity and his respect were lost upon Miss +Daisy Miller. "I guess my mother won't go, after all," she said. "She +don't like to ride round in the afternoon. But did you really mean what +you said just now--that you would like to go up there?" + +"Most earnestly," Winterbourne declared. + +"Then we may arrange it. If mother will stay with Randolph, I guess +Eugenio will." + +"Eugenio?" the young man inquired. + +"Eugenio's our courier. He doesn't like to stay with Randolph; he's the +most fastidious man I ever saw. But he's a splendid courier. I guess +he'll stay at home with Randolph if mother does, and then we can go to +the castle." + +Winterbourne reflected for an instant as lucidly as possible--"we" could +only mean Miss Daisy Miller and himself. This program seemed almost too +agreeable for credence; he felt as if he ought to kiss the young lady's +hand. Possibly he would have done so and quite spoiled the project, but +at this moment another person, presumably Eugenio, appeared. A tall, +handsome man, with superb whiskers, wearing a velvet morning coat and +a brilliant watch chain, approached Miss Miller, looking sharply at her +companion. "Oh, Eugenio!" said Miss Miller with the friendliest accent. + +Eugenio had looked at Winterbourne from head to foot; he now bowed +gravely to the young lady. "I have the honor to inform mademoiselle that +luncheon is upon the table." + +Miss Miller slowly rose. "See here, Eugenio!" she said; "I'm going to +that old castle, anyway." + +"To the Chateau de Chillon, mademoiselle?" the courier inquired. +"Mademoiselle has made arrangements?" he added in a tone which struck +Winterbourne as very impertinent. + +Eugenio's tone apparently threw, even to Miss Miller's own apprehension, +a slightly ironical light upon the young girl's situation. She turned +to Winterbourne, blushing a little--a very little. "You won't back out?" +she said. + +"I shall not be happy till we go!" he protested. + +"And you are staying in this hotel?" she went on. "And you are really an +American?" + +The courier stood looking at Winterbourne offensively. The young man, +at least, thought his manner of looking an offense to Miss Miller; it +conveyed an imputation that she "picked up" acquaintances. "I shall have +the honor of presenting to you a person who will tell you all about me," +he said, smiling and referring to his aunt. + +"Oh, well, we'll go some day," said Miss Miller. And she gave him a +smile and turned away. She put up her parasol and walked back to the inn +beside Eugenio. Winterbourne stood looking after her; and as she moved +away, drawing her muslin furbelows over the gravel, said to himself that +she had the tournure of a princess. + +He had, however, engaged to do more than proved feasible, in promising +to present his aunt, Mrs. Costello, to Miss Daisy Miller. As soon as the +former lady had got better of her headache, he waited upon her in her +apartment; and, after the proper inquiries in regard to her health, he +asked her if she had observed in the hotel an American family--a mamma, +a daughter, and a little boy. + +"And a courier?" said Mrs. Costello. "Oh yes, I have observed them. Seen +them--heard them--and kept out of their way." Mrs. Costello was a widow +with a fortune; a person of much distinction, who frequently intimated +that, if she were not so dreadfully liable to sick headaches, she would +probably have left a deeper impress upon her time. She had a long, pale +face, a high nose, and a great deal of very striking white hair, which +she wore in large puffs and rouleaux over the top of her head. She had +two sons married in New York and another who was now in Europe. This +young man was amusing himself at Hamburg, and, though he was on his +travels, was rarely perceived to visit any particular city at the moment +selected by his mother for her own appearance there. Her nephew, who had +come up to Vevey expressly to see her, was therefore more attentive than +those who, as she said, were nearer to her. He had imbibed at Geneva the +idea that one must always be attentive to one's aunt. Mrs. Costello +had not seen him for many years, and she was greatly pleased with him, +manifesting her approbation by initiating him into many of the secrets +of that social sway which, as she gave him to understand, she exerted in +the American capital. She admitted that she was very exclusive; but, if +he were acquainted with New York, he would see that one had to be. And +her picture of the minutely hierarchical constitution of the society of +that city, which she presented to him in many different lights, was, to +Winterbourne's imagination, almost oppressively striking. + +He immediately perceived, from her tone, that Miss Daisy Miller's place +in the social scale was low. "I am afraid you don't approve of them," he +said. + +"They are very common," Mrs. Costello declared. "They are the sort of +Americans that one does one's duty by not--not accepting." + +"Ah, you don't accept them?" said the young man. + +"I can't, my dear Frederick. I would if I could, but I can't." + +"The young girl is very pretty," said Winterbourne in a moment. + +"Of course she's pretty. But she is very common." + +"I see what you mean, of course," said Winterbourne after another pause. + +"She has that charming look that they all have," his aunt resumed. "I +can't think where they pick it up; and she dresses in perfection--no, +you don't know how well she dresses. I can't think where they get their +taste." + +"But, my dear aunt, she is not, after all, a Comanche savage." + +"She is a young lady," said Mrs. Costello, "who has an intimacy with her +mamma's courier." + +"An intimacy with the courier?" the young man demanded. + +"Oh, the mother is just as bad! They treat the courier like a familiar +friend--like a gentleman. I shouldn't wonder if he dines with them. +Very likely they have never seen a man with such good manners, such +fine clothes, so like a gentleman. He probably corresponds to the young +lady's idea of a count. He sits with them in the garden in the evening. +I think he smokes." + +Winterbourne listened with interest to these disclosures; they helped +him to make up his mind about Miss Daisy. Evidently she was rather wild. +"Well," he said, "I am not a courier, and yet she was very charming to +me." + +"You had better have said at first," said Mrs. Costello with dignity, +"that you had made her acquaintance." + +"We simply met in the garden, and we talked a bit." + +"Tout bonnement! And pray what did you say?" + +"I said I should take the liberty of introducing her to my admirable +aunt." + +"I am much obliged to you." + +"It was to guarantee my respectability," said Winterbourne. + +"And pray who is to guarantee hers?" + +"Ah, you are cruel!" said the young man. "She's a very nice young girl." + +"You don't say that as if you believed it," Mrs. Costello observed. + +"She is completely uncultivated," Winterbourne went on. "But she is +wonderfully pretty, and, in short, she is very nice. To prove that I +believe it, I am going to take her to the Chateau de Chillon." + +"You two are going off there together? I should say it proved just the +contrary. How long had you known her, may I ask, when this interesting +project was formed? You haven't been twenty-four hours in the house." + +"I have known her half an hour!" said Winterbourne, smiling. + +"Dear me!" cried Mrs. Costello. "What a dreadful girl!" + +Her nephew was silent for some moments. "You really think, then," he +began earnestly, and with a desire for trustworthy information--"you +really think that--" But he paused again. + +"Think what, sir?" said his aunt. + +"That she is the sort of young lady who expects a man, sooner or later, +to carry her off?" + +"I haven't the least idea what such young ladies expect a man to do. But +I really think that you had better not meddle with little American girls +that are uncultivated, as you call them. You have lived too long out of +the country. You will be sure to make some great mistake. You are too +innocent." + +"My dear aunt, I am not so innocent," said Winterbourne, smiling and +curling his mustache. + +"You are guilty too, then!" + +Winterbourne continued to curl his mustache meditatively. "You won't let +the poor girl know you then?" he asked at last. + +"Is it literally true that she is going to the Chateau de Chillon with +you?" + +"I think that she fully intends it." + +"Then, my dear Frederick," said Mrs. Costello, "I must decline the honor +of her acquaintance. I am an old woman, but I am not too old, thank +Heaven, to be shocked!" + +"But don't they all do these things--the young girls in America?" +Winterbourne inquired. + +Mrs. Costello stared a moment. "I should like to see my granddaughters +do them!" she declared grimly. + +This seemed to throw some light upon the matter, for Winterbourne +remembered to have heard that his pretty cousins in New York were +"tremendous flirts." If, therefore, Miss Daisy Miller exceeded the +liberal margin allowed to these young ladies, it was probable that +anything might be expected of her. Winterbourne was impatient to see her +again, and he was vexed with himself that, by instinct, he should not +appreciate her justly. + +Though he was impatient to see her, he hardly knew what he should say +to her about his aunt's refusal to become acquainted with her; but he +discovered, promptly enough, that with Miss Daisy Miller there was +no great need of walking on tiptoe. He found her that evening in the +garden, wandering about in the warm starlight like an indolent sylph, +and swinging to and fro the largest fan he had ever beheld. It was ten +o'clock. He had dined with his aunt, had been sitting with her since +dinner, and had just taken leave of her till the morrow. Miss Daisy +Miller seemed very glad to see him; she declared it was the longest +evening she had ever passed. + +"Have you been all alone?" he asked. + +"I have been walking round with mother. But mother gets tired walking +round," she answered. + +"Has she gone to bed?" + +"No; she doesn't like to go to bed," said the young girl. "She doesn't +sleep--not three hours. She says she doesn't know how she lives. She's +dreadfully nervous. I guess she sleeps more than she thinks. She's gone +somewhere after Randolph; she wants to try to get him to go to bed. He +doesn't like to go to bed." + +"Let us hope she will persuade him," observed Winterbourne. + +"She will talk to him all she can; but he doesn't like her to talk +to him," said Miss Daisy, opening her fan. "She's going to try to get +Eugenio to talk to him. But he isn't afraid of Eugenio. Eugenio's a +splendid courier, but he can't make much impression on Randolph! I don't +believe he'll go to bed before eleven." It appeared that Randolph's +vigil was in fact triumphantly prolonged, for Winterbourne strolled +about with the young girl for some time without meeting her mother. "I +have been looking round for that lady you want to introduce me to," his +companion resumed. "She's your aunt." Then, on Winterbourne's admitting +the fact and expressing some curiosity as to how she had learned it, she +said she had heard all about Mrs. Costello from the chambermaid. She was +very quiet and very comme il faut; she wore white puffs; she spoke to no +one, and she never dined at the table d'hote. Every two days she had a +headache. "I think that's a lovely description, headache and all!" said +Miss Daisy, chattering along in her thin, gay voice. "I want to know her +ever so much. I know just what YOUR aunt would be; I know I should like +her. She would be very exclusive. I like a lady to be exclusive; I'm +dying to be exclusive myself. Well, we ARE exclusive, mother and I. We +don't speak to everyone--or they don't speak to us. I suppose it's about +the same thing. Anyway, I shall be ever so glad to know your aunt." + +Winterbourne was embarrassed. "She would be most happy," he said; "but I +am afraid those headaches will interfere." + +The young girl looked at him through the dusk. "But I suppose she +doesn't have a headache every day," she said sympathetically. + +Winterbourne was silent a moment. "She tells me she does," he answered +at last, not knowing what to say. + +Miss Daisy Miller stopped and stood looking at him. Her prettiness was +still visible in the darkness; she was opening and closing her enormous +fan. "She doesn't want to know me!" she said suddenly. "Why don't you +say so? You needn't be afraid. I'm not afraid!" And she gave a little +laugh. + +Winterbourne fancied there was a tremor in her voice; he was touched, +shocked, mortified by it. "My dear young lady," he protested, "she knows +no one. It's her wretched health." + +The young girl walked on a few steps, laughing still. "You needn't be +afraid," she repeated. "Why should she want to know me?" Then she paused +again; she was close to the parapet of the garden, and in front of her +was the starlit lake. There was a vague sheen upon its surface, and in +the distance were dimly seen mountain forms. Daisy Miller looked out +upon the mysterious prospect and then she gave another little laugh. +"Gracious! she IS exclusive!" she said. Winterbourne wondered whether +she was seriously wounded, and for a moment almost wished that her sense +of injury might be such as to make it becoming in him to attempt to +reassure and comfort her. He had a pleasant sense that she would be very +approachable for consolatory purposes. He felt then, for the instant, +quite ready to sacrifice his aunt, conversationally; to admit that she +was a proud, rude woman, and to declare that they needn't mind her. +But before he had time to commit himself to this perilous mixture +of gallantry and impiety, the young lady, resuming her walk, gave an +exclamation in quite another tone. "Well, here's Mother! I guess she +hasn't got Randolph to go to bed." The figure of a lady appeared at a +distance, very indistinct in the darkness, and advancing with a slow and +wavering movement. Suddenly it seemed to pause. + +"Are you sure it is your mother? Can you distinguish her in this thick +dusk?" Winterbourne asked. + +"Well!" cried Miss Daisy Miller with a laugh; "I guess I know my own +mother. And when she has got on my shawl, too! She is always wearing my +things." + +The lady in question, ceasing to advance, hovered vaguely about the spot +at which she had checked her steps. + +"I am afraid your mother doesn't see you," said Winterbourne. +"Or perhaps," he added, thinking, with Miss Miller, the joke +permissible--"perhaps she feels guilty about your shawl." + +"Oh, it's a fearful old thing!" the young girl replied serenely. "I told +her she could wear it. She won't come here because she sees you." + +"Ah, then," said Winterbourne, "I had better leave you." + +"Oh, no; come on!" urged Miss Daisy Miller. + +"I'm afraid your mother doesn't approve of my walking with you." + +Miss Miller gave him a serious glance. "It isn't for me; it's for +you--that is, it's for HER. Well, I don't know who it's for! But mother +doesn't like any of my gentlemen friends. She's right down timid. She +always makes a fuss if I introduce a gentleman. But I DO introduce +them--almost always. If I didn't introduce my gentlemen friends to +Mother," the young girl added in her little soft, flat monotone, "I +shouldn't think I was natural." + +"To introduce me," said Winterbourne, "you must know my name." And he +proceeded to pronounce it. + +"Oh, dear, I can't say all that!" said his companion with a laugh. But +by this time they had come up to Mrs. Miller, who, as they drew near, +walked to the parapet of the garden and leaned upon it, looking intently +at the lake and turning her back to them. "Mother!" said the young +girl in a tone of decision. Upon this the elder lady turned round. "Mr. +Winterbourne," said Miss Daisy Miller, introducing the young man very +frankly and prettily. "Common," she was, as Mrs. Costello had pronounced +her; yet it was a wonder to Winterbourne that, with her commonness, she +had a singularly delicate grace. + +Her mother was a small, spare, light person, with a wandering eye, +a very exiguous nose, and a large forehead, decorated with a certain +amount of thin, much frizzled hair. Like her daughter, Mrs. Miller was +dressed with extreme elegance; she had enormous diamonds in her ears. +So far as Winterbourne could observe, she gave him no greeting--she +certainly was not looking at him. Daisy was near her, pulling her shawl +straight. "What are you doing, poking round here?" this young lady +inquired, but by no means with that harshness of accent which her choice +of words may imply. + +"I don't know," said her mother, turning toward the lake again. + +"I shouldn't think you'd want that shawl!" Daisy exclaimed. + +"Well I do!" her mother answered with a little laugh. + +"Did you get Randolph to go to bed?" asked the young girl. + +"No; I couldn't induce him," said Mrs. Miller very gently. "He wants to +talk to the waiter. He likes to talk to that waiter." + +"I was telling Mr. Winterbourne," the young girl went on; and to the +young man's ear her tone might have indicated that she had been uttering +his name all her life. + +"Oh, yes!" said Winterbourne; "I have the pleasure of knowing your son." + +Randolph's mamma was silent; she turned her attention to the lake. But +at last she spoke. "Well, I don't see how he lives!" + +"Anyhow, it isn't so bad as it was at Dover," said Daisy Miller. + +"And what occurred at Dover?" Winterbourne asked. + +"He wouldn't go to bed at all. I guess he sat up all night in the public +parlor. He wasn't in bed at twelve o'clock: I know that." + +"It was half-past twelve," declared Mrs. Miller with mild emphasis. + +"Does he sleep much during the day?" Winterbourne demanded. + +"I guess he doesn't sleep much," Daisy rejoined. + +"I wish he would!" said her mother. "It seems as if he couldn't." + +"I think he's real tiresome," Daisy pursued. + +Then, for some moments, there was silence. "Well, Daisy Miller," said +the elder lady, presently, "I shouldn't think you'd want to talk against +your own brother!" + +"Well, he IS tiresome, Mother," said Daisy, quite without the asperity +of a retort. + +"He's only nine," urged Mrs. Miller. + +"Well, he wouldn't go to that castle," said the young girl. "I'm going +there with Mr. Winterbourne." + +To this announcement, very placidly made, Daisy's mamma offered no +response. Winterbourne took for granted that she deeply disapproved of +the projected excursion; but he said to himself that she was a simple, +easily managed person, and that a few deferential protestations would +take the edge from her displeasure. "Yes," he began; "your daughter has +kindly allowed me the honor of being her guide." + +Mrs. Miller's wandering eyes attached themselves, with a sort of +appealing air, to Daisy, who, however, strolled a few steps farther, +gently humming to herself. "I presume you will go in the cars," said her +mother. + +"Yes, or in the boat," said Winterbourne. + +"Well, of course, I don't know," Mrs. Miller rejoined. "I have never +been to that castle." + +"It is a pity you shouldn't go," said Winterbourne, beginning to feel +reassured as to her opposition. And yet he was quite prepared to find +that, as a matter of course, she meant to accompany her daughter. + +"We've been thinking ever so much about going," she pursued; "but it +seems as if we couldn't. Of course Daisy--she wants to go round. But +there's a lady here--I don't know her name--she says she shouldn't think +we'd want to go to see castles HERE; she should think we'd want to wait +till we got to Italy. It seems as if there would be so many there," +continued Mrs. Miller with an air of increasing confidence. "Of course +we only want to see the principal ones. We visited several in England," +she presently added. + +"Ah yes! in England there are beautiful castles," said Winterbourne. +"But Chillon here, is very well worth seeing." + +"Well, if Daisy feels up to it--" said Mrs. Miller, in a tone +impregnated with a sense of the magnitude of the enterprise. "It seems +as if there was nothing she wouldn't undertake." + +"Oh, I think she'll enjoy it!" Winterbourne declared. And he desired +more and more to make it a certainty that he was to have the privilege +of a tete-a-tete with the young lady, who was still strolling along +in front of them, softly vocalizing. "You are not disposed, madam," he +inquired, "to undertake it yourself?" + +Daisy's mother looked at him an instant askance, and then walked forward +in silence. Then--"I guess she had better go alone," she said simply. +Winterbourne observed to himself that this was a very different type of +maternity from that of the vigilant matrons who massed themselves in the +forefront of social intercourse in the dark old city at the other end of +the lake. But his meditations were interrupted by hearing his name very +distinctly pronounced by Mrs. Miller's unprotected daughter. + +"Mr. Winterbourne!" murmured Daisy. + +"Mademoiselle!" said the young man. + +"Don't you want to take me out in a boat?" + +"At present?" he asked. + +"Of course!" said Daisy. + +"Well, Annie Miller!" exclaimed her mother. + +"I beg you, madam, to let her go," said Winterbourne ardently; for +he had never yet enjoyed the sensation of guiding through the summer +starlight a skiff freighted with a fresh and beautiful young girl. + +"I shouldn't think she'd want to," said her mother. "I should think +she'd rather go indoors." + +"I'm sure Mr. Winterbourne wants to take me," Daisy declared. "He's so +awfully devoted!" + +"I will row you over to Chillon in the starlight." + +"I don't believe it!" said Daisy. + +"Well!" ejaculated the elder lady again. + +"You haven't spoken to me for half an hour," her daughter went on. + +"I have been having some very pleasant conversation with your mother," +said Winterbourne. + +"Well, I want you to take me out in a boat!" Daisy repeated. They had +all stopped, and she had turned round and was looking at Winterbourne. +Her face wore a charming smile, her pretty eyes were gleaming, she was +swinging her great fan about. No; it's impossible to be prettier than +that, thought Winterbourne. + +"There are half a dozen boats moored at that landing place," he said, +pointing to certain steps which descended from the garden to the lake. +"If you will do me the honor to accept my arm, we will go and select one +of them." + +Daisy stood there smiling; she threw back her head and gave a little, +light laugh. "I like a gentleman to be formal!" she declared. + +"I assure you it's a formal offer." + +"I was bound I would make you say something," Daisy went on. + +"You see, it's not very difficult," said Winterbourne. "But I am afraid +you are chaffing me." + +"I think not, sir," remarked Mrs. Miller very gently. + +"Do, then, let me give you a row," he said to the young girl. + +"It's quite lovely, the way you say that!" cried Daisy. + +"It will be still more lovely to do it." + +"Yes, it would be lovely!" said Daisy. But she made no movement to +accompany him; she only stood there laughing. + +"I should think you had better find out what time it is," interposed her +mother. + +"It is eleven o'clock, madam," said a voice, with a foreign accent, out +of the neighboring darkness; and Winterbourne, turning, perceived the +florid personage who was in attendance upon the two ladies. He had +apparently just approached. + +"Oh, Eugenio," said Daisy, "I am going out in a boat!" + +Eugenio bowed. "At eleven o'clock, mademoiselle?" + +"I am going with Mr. Winterbourne--this very minute." + +"Do tell her she can't," said Mrs. Miller to the courier. + +"I think you had better not go out in a boat, mademoiselle," Eugenio +declared. + +Winterbourne wished to Heaven this pretty girl were not so familiar with +her courier; but he said nothing. + +"I suppose you don't think it's proper!" Daisy exclaimed. "Eugenio +doesn't think anything's proper." + +"I am at your service," said Winterbourne. + +"Does mademoiselle propose to go alone?" asked Eugenio of Mrs. Miller. + +"Oh, no; with this gentleman!" answered Daisy's mamma. + +The courier looked for a moment at Winterbourne--the latter thought he +was smiling--and then, solemnly, with a bow, "As mademoiselle pleases!" +he said. + +"Oh, I hoped you would make a fuss!" said Daisy. "I don't care to go +now." + +"I myself shall make a fuss if you don't go," said Winterbourne. + +"That's all I want--a little fuss!" And the young girl began to laugh +again. + +"Mr. Randolph has gone to bed!" the courier announced frigidly. + +"Oh, Daisy; now we can go!" said Mrs. Miller. + +Daisy turned away from Winterbourne, looking at him, smiling and fanning +herself. "Good night," she said; "I hope you are disappointed, or +disgusted, or something!" + +He looked at her, taking the hand she offered him. "I am puzzled," he +answered. + +"Well, I hope it won't keep you awake!" she said very smartly; and, +under the escort of the privileged Eugenio, the two ladies passed toward +the house. + +Winterbourne stood looking after them; he was indeed puzzled. He +lingered beside the lake for a quarter of an hour, turning over the +mystery of the young girl's sudden familiarities and caprices. But +the only very definite conclusion he came to was that he should enjoy +deucedly "going off" with her somewhere. + +Two days afterward he went off with her to the Castle of Chillon. He +waited for her in the large hall of the hotel, where the couriers, the +servants, the foreign tourists, were lounging about and staring. It was +not the place he should have chosen, but she had appointed it. She came +tripping downstairs, buttoning her long gloves, squeezing her folded +parasol against her pretty figure, dressed in the perfection of a +soberly elegant traveling costume. Winterbourne was a man of imagination +and, as our ancestors used to say, sensibility; as he looked at her +dress and, on the great staircase, her little rapid, confiding step, he +felt as if there were something romantic going forward. He could have +believed he was going to elope with her. He passed out with her among +all the idle people that were assembled there; they were all looking +at her very hard; she had begun to chatter as soon as she joined him. +Winterbourne's preference had been that they should be conveyed to +Chillon in a carriage; but she expressed a lively wish to go in the +little steamer; she declared that she had a passion for steamboats. +There was always such a lovely breeze upon the water, and you saw such +lots of people. The sail was not long, but Winterbourne's companion +found time to say a great many things. To the young man himself their +little excursion was so much of an escapade--an adventure--that, even +allowing for her habitual sense of freedom, he had some expectation of +seeing her regard it in the same way. But it must be confessed that, +in this particular, he was disappointed. Daisy Miller was extremely +animated, she was in charming spirits; but she was apparently not at all +excited; she was not fluttered; she avoided neither his eyes nor those +of anyone else; she blushed neither when she looked at him nor when she +felt that people were looking at her. People continued to look at her +a great deal, and Winterbourne took much satisfaction in his pretty +companion's distinguished air. He had been a little afraid that she +would talk loud, laugh overmuch, and even, perhaps, desire to move about +the boat a good deal. But he quite forgot his fears; he sat smiling, +with his eyes upon her face, while, without moving from her place, she +delivered herself of a great number of original reflections. It was the +most charming garrulity he had ever heard. He had assented to the idea +that she was "common"; but was she so, after all, or was he simply +getting used to her commonness? Her conversation was chiefly of what +metaphysicians term the objective cast, but every now and then it took a +subjective turn. + +"What on EARTH are you so grave about?" she suddenly demanded, fixing +her agreeable eyes upon Winterbourne's. + +"Am I grave?" he asked. "I had an idea I was grinning from ear to ear." + +"You look as if you were taking me to a funeral. If that's a grin, your +ears are very near together." + +"Should you like me to dance a hornpipe on the deck?" + +"Pray do, and I'll carry round your hat. It will pay the expenses of our +journey." + +"I never was better pleased in my life," murmured Winterbourne. + +She looked at him a moment and then burst into a little laugh. "I like +to make you say those things! You're a queer mixture!" + +In the castle, after they had landed, the subjective element decidedly +prevailed. Daisy tripped about the vaulted chambers, rustled her skirts +in the corkscrew staircases, flirted back with a pretty little cry and +a shudder from the edge of the oubliettes, and turned a singularly +well-shaped ear to everything that Winterbourne told her about the +place. But he saw that she cared very little for feudal antiquities and +that the dusky traditions of Chillon made but a slight impression upon +her. They had the good fortune to have been able to walk about without +other companionship than that of the custodian; and Winterbourne +arranged with this functionary that they should not be hurried--that +they should linger and pause wherever they chose. The custodian +interpreted the bargain generously--Winterbourne, on his side, had been +generous--and ended by leaving them quite to themselves. Miss Miller's +observations were not remarkable for logical consistency; for anything +she wanted to say she was sure to find a pretext. She found a great many +pretexts in the rugged embrasures of Chillon for asking Winterbourne +sudden questions about himself--his family, his previous history, his +tastes, his habits, his intentions--and for supplying information upon +corresponding points in her own personality. Of her own tastes, habits, +and intentions Miss Miller was prepared to give the most definite, and +indeed the most favorable account. + +"Well, I hope you know enough!" she said to her companion, after he had +told her the history of the unhappy Bonivard. "I never saw a man that +knew so much!" The history of Bonivard had evidently, as they say, gone +into one ear and out of the other. But Daisy went on to say that she +wished Winterbourne would travel with them and "go round" with them; +they might know something, in that case. "Don't you want to come +and teach Randolph?" she asked. Winterbourne said that nothing +could possibly please him so much, but that he had unfortunately other +occupations. "Other occupations? I don't believe it!" said Miss Daisy. +"What do you mean? You are not in business." The young man admitted that +he was not in business; but he had engagements which, even within a day +or two, would force him to go back to Geneva. "Oh, bother!" she said; "I +don't believe it!" and she began to talk about something else. But a few +moments later, when he was pointing out to her the pretty design of an +antique fireplace, she broke out irrelevantly, "You don't mean to say +you are going back to Geneva?" + +"It is a melancholy fact that I shall have to return to Geneva +tomorrow." + +"Well, Mr. Winterbourne," said Daisy, "I think you're horrid!" + +"Oh, don't say such dreadful things!" said Winterbourne--"just at the +last!" + +"The last!" cried the young girl; "I call it the first. I have half a +mind to leave you here and go straight back to the hotel alone." And +for the next ten minutes she did nothing but call him horrid. Poor +Winterbourne was fairly bewildered; no young lady had as yet done him +the honor to be so agitated by the announcement of his movements. His +companion, after this, ceased to pay any attention to the curiosities of +Chillon or the beauties of the lake; she opened fire upon the mysterious +charmer in Geneva whom she appeared to have instantly taken it for +granted that he was hurrying back to see. How did Miss Daisy Miller +know that there was a charmer in Geneva? Winterbourne, who denied the +existence of such a person, was quite unable to discover, and he was +divided between amazement at the rapidity of her induction and amusement +at the frankness of her persiflage. She seemed to him, in all this, an +extraordinary mixture of innocence and crudity. "Does she never allow +you more than three days at a time?" asked Daisy ironically. "Doesn't +she give you a vacation in summer? There's no one so hard worked but +they can get leave to go off somewhere at this season. I suppose, if you +stay another day, she'll come after you in the boat. Do wait over +till Friday, and I will go down to the landing to see her arrive!" +Winterbourne began to think he had been wrong to feel disappointed in +the temper in which the young lady had embarked. If he had missed the +personal accent, the personal accent was now making its appearance. +It sounded very distinctly, at last, in her telling him she would stop +"teasing" him if he would promise her solemnly to come down to Rome in +the winter. + +"That's not a difficult promise to make," said Winterbourne. "My aunt +has taken an apartment in Rome for the winter and has already asked me +to come and see her." + +"I don't want you to come for your aunt," said Daisy; "I want you to +come for me." And this was the only allusion that the young man was ever +to hear her make to his invidious kinswoman. He declared that, at +any rate, he would certainly come. After this Daisy stopped teasing. +Winterbourne took a carriage, and they drove back to Vevey in the dusk; +the young girl was very quiet. + +In the evening Winterbourne mentioned to Mrs. Costello that he had spent +the afternoon at Chillon with Miss Daisy Miller. + +"The Americans--of the courier?" asked this lady. + +"Ah, happily," said Winterbourne, "the courier stayed at home." + +"She went with you all alone?" + +"All alone." + +Mrs. Costello sniffed a little at her smelling bottle. "And that," she +exclaimed, "is the young person whom you wanted me to know!" + + + + + +PART II + + +Winterbourne, who had returned to Geneva the day after his excursion +to Chillon, went to Rome toward the end of January. His aunt had been +established there for several weeks, and he had received a couple of +letters from her. "Those people you were so devoted to last summer at +Vevey have turned up here, courier and all," she wrote. "They seem to +have made several acquaintances, but the courier continues to be the +most intime. The young lady, however, is also very intimate with some +third-rate Italians, with whom she rackets about in a way that makes +much talk. Bring me that pretty novel of Cherbuliez's--Paule Mere--and +don't come later than the 23rd." + +In the natural course of events, Winterbourne, on arriving in Rome, +would presently have ascertained Mrs. Miller's address at the American +banker's and have gone to pay his compliments to Miss Daisy. "After what +happened at Vevey, I think I may certainly call upon them," he said to +Mrs. Costello. + +"If, after what happens--at Vevey and everywhere--you desire to keep +up the acquaintance, you are very welcome. Of course a man may know +everyone. Men are welcome to the privilege!" + +"Pray what is it that happens--here, for instance?" Winterbourne +demanded. + +"The girl goes about alone with her foreigners. As to what happens +further, you must apply elsewhere for information. She has picked up +half a dozen of the regular Roman fortune hunters, and she takes them +about to people's houses. When she comes to a party she brings with her +a gentleman with a good deal of manner and a wonderful mustache." + +"And where is the mother?" + +"I haven't the least idea. They are very dreadful people." + +Winterbourne meditated a moment. "They are very ignorant--very innocent +only. Depend upon it they are not bad." + +"They are hopelessly vulgar," said Mrs. Costello. "Whether or no being +hopelessly vulgar is being 'bad' is a question for the metaphysicians. +They are bad enough to dislike, at any rate; and for this short life +that is quite enough." + +The news that Daisy Miller was surrounded by half a dozen wonderful +mustaches checked Winterbourne's impulse to go straightway to see her. +He had, perhaps, not definitely flattered himself that he had made an +ineffaceable impression upon her heart, but he was annoyed at hearing +of a state of affairs so little in harmony with an image that had lately +flitted in and out of his own meditations; the image of a very pretty +girl looking out of an old Roman window and asking herself urgently +when Mr. Winterbourne would arrive. If, however, he determined to wait a +little before reminding Miss Miller of his claims to her consideration, +he went very soon to call upon two or three other friends. One of these +friends was an American lady who had spent several winters at Geneva, +where she had placed her children at school. She was a very accomplished +woman, and she lived in the Via Gregoriana. Winterbourne found her in a +little crimson drawing room on a third floor; the room was filled with +southern sunshine. He had not been there ten minutes when the servant +came in, announcing "Madame Mila!" This announcement was presently +followed by the entrance of little Randolph Miller, who stopped in the +middle of the room and stood staring at Winterbourne. An instant later +his pretty sister crossed the threshold; and then, after a considerable +interval, Mrs. Miller slowly advanced. + +"I know you!" said Randolph. + +"I'm sure you know a great many things," exclaimed Winterbourne, taking +him by the hand. "How is your education coming on?" + +Daisy was exchanging greetings very prettily with her hostess, but when +she heard Winterbourne's voice she quickly turned her head. "Well, I +declare!" she said. + +"I told you I should come, you know," Winterbourne rejoined, smiling. + +"Well, I didn't believe it," said Miss Daisy. + +"I am much obliged to you," laughed the young man. + +"You might have come to see me!" said Daisy. + +"I arrived only yesterday." + +"I don't believe that!" the young girl declared. + +Winterbourne turned with a protesting smile to her mother, but this lady +evaded his glance, and, seating herself, fixed her eyes upon her son. +"We've got a bigger place than this," said Randolph. "It's all gold on +the walls." + +Mrs. Miller turned uneasily in her chair. "I told you if I were to bring +you, you would say something!" she murmured. + +"I told YOU!" Randolph exclaimed. "I tell YOU, sir!" he added jocosely, +giving Winterbourne a thump on the knee. "It IS bigger, too!" + +Daisy had entered upon a lively conversation with her hostess; +Winterbourne judged it becoming to address a few words to her mother. "I +hope you have been well since we parted at Vevey," he said. + +Mrs. Miller now certainly looked at him--at his chin. "Not very well, +sir," she answered. + +"She's got the dyspepsia," said Randolph. "I've got it too. Father's got +it. I've got it most!" + +This announcement, instead of embarrassing Mrs. Miller, seemed to +relieve her. "I suffer from the liver," she said. "I think it's this +climate; it's less bracing than Schenectady, especially in the winter +season. I don't know whether you know we reside at Schenectady. I was +saying to Daisy that I certainly hadn't found any one like Dr. Davis, +and I didn't believe I should. Oh, at Schenectady he stands first; they +think everything of him. He has so much to do, and yet there was nothing +he wouldn't do for me. He said he never saw anything like my dyspepsia, +but he was bound to cure it. I'm sure there was nothing he wouldn't +try. He was just going to try something new when we came off. Mr. Miller +wanted Daisy to see Europe for herself. But I wrote to Mr. Miller that +it seems as if I couldn't get on without Dr. Davis. At Schenectady he +stands at the very top; and there's a great deal of sickness there, too. +It affects my sleep." + +Winterbourne had a good deal of pathological gossip with Dr. Davis's +patient, during which Daisy chattered unremittingly to her own +companion. The young man asked Mrs. Miller how she was pleased with +Rome. "Well, I must say I am disappointed," she answered. "We had heard +so much about it; I suppose we had heard too much. But we couldn't help +that. We had been led to expect something different." + +"Ah, wait a little, and you will become very fond of it," said +Winterbourne. + +"I hate it worse and worse every day!" cried Randolph. + +"You are like the infant Hannibal," said Winterbourne. + +"No, I ain't!" Randolph declared at a venture. + +"You are not much like an infant," said his mother. "But we have seen +places," she resumed, "that I should put a long way before Rome." And in +reply to Winterbourne's interrogation, "There's Zurich," she concluded, +"I think Zurich is lovely; and we hadn't heard half so much about it." + +"The best place we've seen is the City of Richmond!" said Randolph. + +"He means the ship," his mother explained. "We crossed in that ship. +Randolph had a good time on the City of Richmond." + +"It's the best place I've seen," the child repeated. "Only it was turned +the wrong way." + +"Well, we've got to turn the right way some time," said Mrs. Miller with +a little laugh. Winterbourne expressed the hope that her daughter at +least found some gratification in Rome, and she declared that Daisy +was quite carried away. "It's on account of the society--the society's +splendid. She goes round everywhere; she has made a great number of +acquaintances. Of course she goes round more than I do. I must say they +have been very sociable; they have taken her right in. And then she +knows a great many gentlemen. Oh, she thinks there's nothing like Rome. +Of course, it's a great deal pleasanter for a young lady if she knows +plenty of gentlemen." + +By this time Daisy had turned her attention again to Winterbourne. "I've +been telling Mrs. Walker how mean you were!" the young girl announced. + +"And what is the evidence you have offered?" asked Winterbourne, rather +annoyed at Miss Miller's want of appreciation of the zeal of an admirer +who on his way down to Rome had stopped neither at Bologna nor at +Florence, simply because of a certain sentimental impatience. He +remembered that a cynical compatriot had once told him that American +women--the pretty ones, and this gave a largeness to the axiom--were at +once the most exacting in the world and the least endowed with a sense +of indebtedness. + +"Why, you were awfully mean at Vevey," said Daisy. "You wouldn't do +anything. You wouldn't stay there when I asked you." + +"My dearest young lady," cried Winterbourne, with eloquence, "have I +come all the way to Rome to encounter your reproaches?" + +"Just hear him say that!" said Daisy to her hostess, giving a twist to a +bow on this lady's dress. "Did you ever hear anything so quaint?" + +"So quaint, my dear?" murmured Mrs. Walker in the tone of a partisan of +Winterbourne. + +"Well, I don't know," said Daisy, fingering Mrs. Walker's ribbons. "Mrs. +Walker, I want to tell you something." + +"Mother-r," interposed Randolph, with his rough ends to his words, "I +tell you you've got to go. Eugenio'll raise--something!" + +"I'm not afraid of Eugenio," said Daisy with a toss of her head. "Look +here, Mrs. Walker," she went on, "you know I'm coming to your party." + +"I am delighted to hear it." + +"I've got a lovely dress!" + +"I am very sure of that." + +"But I want to ask a favor--permission to bring a friend." + +"I shall be happy to see any of your friends," said Mrs. Walker, turning +with a smile to Mrs. Miller. + +"Oh, they are not my friends," answered Daisy's mamma, smiling shyly in +her own fashion. "I never spoke to them." + +"It's an intimate friend of mine--Mr. Giovanelli," said Daisy without +a tremor in her clear little voice or a shadow on her brilliant little +face. + +Mrs. Walker was silent a moment; she gave a rapid glance at +Winterbourne. "I shall be glad to see Mr. Giovanelli," she then said. + +"He's an Italian," Daisy pursued with the prettiest serenity. "He's a +great friend of mine; he's the handsomest man in the world--except Mr. +Winterbourne! He knows plenty of Italians, but he wants to know some +Americans. He thinks ever so much of Americans. He's tremendously +clever. He's perfectly lovely!" + +It was settled that this brilliant personage should be brought to Mrs. +Walker's party, and then Mrs. Miller prepared to take her leave. "I +guess we'll go back to the hotel," she said. + +"You may go back to the hotel, Mother, but I'm going to take a walk," +said Daisy. + +"She's going to walk with Mr. Giovanelli," Randolph proclaimed. + +"I am going to the Pincio," said Daisy, smiling. + +"Alone, my dear--at this hour?" Mrs. Walker asked. The afternoon was +drawing to a close--it was the hour for the throng of carriages and of +contemplative pedestrians. "I don't think it's safe, my dear," said Mrs. +Walker. + +"Neither do I," subjoined Mrs. Miller. "You'll get the fever, as sure as +you live. Remember what Dr. Davis told you!" + +"Give her some medicine before she goes," said Randolph. + +The company had risen to its feet; Daisy, still showing her pretty +teeth, bent over and kissed her hostess. "Mrs. Walker, you are too +perfect," she said. "I'm not going alone; I am going to meet a friend." + +"Your friend won't keep you from getting the fever," Mrs. Miller +observed. + +"Is it Mr. Giovanelli?" asked the hostess. + +Winterbourne was watching the young girl; at this question his attention +quickened. She stood there, smiling and smoothing her bonnet ribbons; +she glanced at Winterbourne. Then, while she glanced and smiled, she +answered, without a shade of hesitation, "Mr. Giovanelli--the beautiful +Giovanelli." + +"My dear young friend," said Mrs. Walker, taking her hand pleadingly, +"don't walk off to the Pincio at this hour to meet a beautiful Italian." + +"Well, he speaks English," said Mrs. Miller. + +"Gracious me!" Daisy exclaimed, "I don't to do anything improper. +There's an easy way to settle it." She continued to glance at +Winterbourne. "The Pincio is only a hundred yards distant; and if Mr. +Winterbourne were as polite as he pretends, he would offer to walk with +me!" + +Winterbourne's politeness hastened to affirm itself, and the young girl +gave him gracious leave to accompany her. They passed downstairs +before her mother, and at the door Winterbourne perceived Mrs. Miller's +carriage drawn up, with the ornamental courier whose acquaintance he had +made at Vevey seated within. "Goodbye, Eugenio!" cried Daisy; "I'm going +to take a walk." The distance from the Via Gregoriana to the beautiful +garden at the other end of the Pincian Hill is, in fact, rapidly +traversed. As the day was splendid, however, and the concourse of +vehicles, walkers, and loungers numerous, the young Americans found +their progress much delayed. This fact was highly agreeable to +Winterbourne, in spite of his consciousness of his singular situation. +The slow-moving, idly gazing Roman crowd bestowed much attention upon +the extremely pretty young foreign lady who was passing through it upon +his arm; and he wondered what on earth had been in Daisy's mind when +she proposed to expose herself, unattended, to its appreciation. His own +mission, to her sense, apparently, was to consign her to the hands +of Mr. Giovanelli; but Winterbourne, at once annoyed and gratified, +resolved that he would do no such thing. + +"Why haven't you been to see me?" asked Daisy. "You can't get out of +that." + +"I have had the honor of telling you that I have only just stepped out +of the train." + +"You must have stayed in the train a good while after it stopped!" cried +the young girl with her little laugh. "I suppose you were asleep. You +have had time to go to see Mrs. Walker." + +"I knew Mrs. Walker--" Winterbourne began to explain. + +"I know where you knew her. You knew her at Geneva. She told me so. +Well, you knew me at Vevey. That's just as good. So you ought to have +come." She asked him no other question than this; she began to prattle +about her own affairs. "We've got splendid rooms at the hotel; Eugenio +says they're the best rooms in Rome. We are going to stay all winter, +if we don't die of the fever; and I guess we'll stay then. It's a great +deal nicer than I thought; I thought it would be fearfully quiet; I was +sure it would be awfully poky. I was sure we should be going round +all the time with one of those dreadful old men that explain about the +pictures and things. But we only had about a week of that, and now +I'm enjoying myself. I know ever so many people, and they are all so +charming. The society's extremely select. There are all kinds--English, +and Germans, and Italians. I think I like the English best. I like their +style of conversation. But there are some lovely Americans. I never saw +anything so hospitable. There's something or other every day. There's +not much dancing; but I must say I never thought dancing was everything. +I was always fond of conversation. I guess I shall have plenty at Mrs. +Walker's, her rooms are so small." When they had passed the gate of the +Pincian Gardens, Miss Miller began to wonder where Mr. Giovanelli might +be. "We had better go straight to that place in front," she said, "where +you look at the view." + +"I certainly shall not help you to find him," Winterbourne declared. + +"Then I shall find him without you," cried Miss Daisy. + +"You certainly won't leave me!" cried Winterbourne. + +She burst into her little laugh. "Are you afraid you'll get lost--or run +over? But there's Giovanelli, leaning against that tree. He's staring at +the women in the carriages: did you ever see anything so cool?" + +Winterbourne perceived at some distance a little man standing with +folded arms nursing his cane. He had a handsome face, an artfully poised +hat, a glass in one eye, and a nosegay in his buttonhole. Winterbourne +looked at him a moment and then said, "Do you mean to speak to that +man?" + +"Do I mean to speak to him? Why, you don't suppose I mean to communicate +by signs?" + +"Pray understand, then," said Winterbourne, "that I intend to remain +with you." + +Daisy stopped and looked at him, without a sign of troubled +consciousness in her face, with nothing but the presence of her charming +eyes and her happy dimples. "Well, she's a cool one!" thought the young +man. + +"I don't like the way you say that," said Daisy. "It's too imperious." + +"I beg your pardon if I say it wrong. The main point is to give you an +idea of my meaning." + +The young girl looked at him more gravely, but with eyes that were +prettier than ever. "I have never allowed a gentleman to dictate to me, +or to interfere with anything I do." + +"I think you have made a mistake," said Winterbourne. "You should +sometimes listen to a gentleman--the right one." + +Daisy began to laugh again. "I do nothing but listen to gentlemen!" she +exclaimed. "Tell me if Mr. Giovanelli is the right one?" + +The gentleman with the nosegay in his bosom had now perceived our two +friends, and was approaching the young girl with obsequious rapidity. +He bowed to Winterbourne as well as to the latter's companion; he had +a brilliant smile, an intelligent eye; Winterbourne thought him not a +bad-looking fellow. But he nevertheless said to Daisy, "No, he's not the +right one." + +Daisy evidently had a natural talent for performing introductions; she +mentioned the name of each of her companions to the other. She strolled +alone with one of them on each side of her; Mr. Giovanelli, who spoke +English very cleverly--Winterbourne afterward learned that he had +practiced the idiom upon a great many American heiresses--addressed her +a great deal of very polite nonsense; he was extremely urbane, and the +young American, who said nothing, reflected upon that profundity of +Italian cleverness which enables people to appear more gracious in +proportion as they are more acutely disappointed. Giovanelli, of course, +had counted upon something more intimate; he had not bargained for +a party of three. But he kept his temper in a manner which suggested +far-stretching intentions. Winterbourne flattered himself that he had +taken his measure. "He is not a gentleman," said the young American; +"he is only a clever imitation of one. He is a music master, or a +penny-a-liner, or a third-rate artist. D__n his good looks!" Mr. +Giovanelli had certainly a very pretty face; but Winterbourne felt a +superior indignation at his own lovely fellow countrywoman's not knowing +the difference between a spurious gentleman and a real one. Giovanelli +chattered and jested and made himself wonderfully agreeable. It was +true that, if he was an imitation, the imitation was brilliant. +"Nevertheless," Winterbourne said to himself, "a nice girl ought to +know!" And then he came back to the question whether this was, in fact, +a nice girl. Would a nice girl, even allowing for her being a little +American flirt, make a rendezvous with a presumably low-lived foreigner? +The rendezvous in this case, indeed, had been in broad daylight and in +the most crowded corner of Rome, but was it not impossible to regard the +choice of these circumstances as a proof of extreme cynicism? Singular +though it may seem, Winterbourne was vexed that the young girl, in +joining her amoroso, should not appear more impatient of his own +company, and he was vexed because of his inclination. It was impossible +to regard her as a perfectly well-conducted young lady; she was wanting +in a certain indispensable delicacy. It would therefore simplify matters +greatly to be able to treat her as the object of one of those sentiments +which are called by romancers "lawless passions." That she should seem +to wish to get rid of him would help him to think more lightly of her, +and to be able to think more lightly of her would make her much less +perplexing. But Daisy, on this occasion, continued to present herself as +an inscrutable combination of audacity and innocence. + +She had been walking some quarter of an hour, attended by her two +cavaliers, and responding in a tone of very childish gaiety, as it +seemed to Winterbourne, to the pretty speeches of Mr. Giovanelli, when +a carriage that had detached itself from the revolving train drew up +beside the path. At the same moment Winterbourne perceived that his +friend Mrs. Walker--the lady whose house he had lately left--was seated +in the vehicle and was beckoning to him. Leaving Miss Miller's side, +he hastened to obey her summons. Mrs. Walker was flushed; she wore an +excited air. "It is really too dreadful," she said. "That girl must not +do this sort of thing. She must not walk here with you two men. Fifty +people have noticed her." + +Winterbourne raised his eyebrows. "I think it's a pity to make too much +fuss about it." + +"It's a pity to let the girl ruin herself!" + +"She is very innocent," said Winterbourne. + +"She's very crazy!" cried Mrs. Walker. "Did you ever see anything so +imbecile as her mother? After you had all left me just now, I could not +sit still for thinking of it. It seemed too pitiful, not even to attempt +to save her. I ordered the carriage and put on my bonnet, and came here +as quickly as possible. Thank Heaven I have found you!" + +"What do you propose to do with us?" asked Winterbourne, smiling. + +"To ask her to get in, to drive her about here for half an hour, so that +the world may see she is not running absolutely wild, and then to take +her safely home." + +"I don't think it's a very happy thought," said Winterbourne; "but you +can try." + +Mrs. Walker tried. The young man went in pursuit of Miss Miller, who +had simply nodded and smiled at his interlocutor in the carriage and +had gone her way with her companion. Daisy, on learning that Mrs. Walker +wished to speak to her, retraced her steps with a perfect good grace and +with Mr. Giovanelli at her side. She declared that she was delighted to +have a chance to present this gentleman to Mrs. Walker. She immediately +achieved the introduction, and declared that she had never in her life +seen anything so lovely as Mrs. Walker's carriage rug. + +"I am glad you admire it," said this lady, smiling sweetly. "Will you +get in and let me put it over you?" + +"Oh, no, thank you," said Daisy. "I shall admire it much more as I see +you driving round with it." + +"Do get in and drive with me!" said Mrs. Walker. + +"That would be charming, but it's so enchanting just as I am!" and Daisy +gave a brilliant glance at the gentlemen on either side of her. + +"It may be enchanting, dear child, but it is not the custom here," urged +Mrs. Walker, leaning forward in her victoria, with her hands devoutly +clasped. + +"Well, it ought to be, then!" said Daisy. "If I didn't walk I should +expire." + +"You should walk with your mother, dear," cried the lady from Geneva, +losing patience. + +"With my mother dear!" exclaimed the young girl. Winterbourne saw that +she scented interference. "My mother never walked ten steps in her life. +And then, you know," she added with a laugh, "I am more than five years +old." + +"You are old enough to be more reasonable. You are old enough, dear Miss +Miller, to be talked about." + +Daisy looked at Mrs. Walker, smiling intensely. "Talked about? What do +you mean?" + +"Come into my carriage, and I will tell you." + +Daisy turned her quickened glance again from one of the gentlemen beside +her to the other. Mr. Giovanelli was bowing to and fro, rubbing down +his gloves and laughing very agreeably; Winterbourne thought it a most +unpleasant scene. "I don't think I want to know what you mean," said +Daisy presently. "I don't think I should like it." + +Winterbourne wished that Mrs. Walker would tuck in her carriage rug and +drive away, but this lady did not enjoy being defied, as she afterward +told him. "Should you prefer being thought a very reckless girl?" she +demanded. + +"Gracious!" exclaimed Daisy. She looked again at Mr. Giovanelli, then +she turned to Winterbourne. There was a little pink flush in her cheek; +she was tremendously pretty. "Does Mr. Winterbourne think," she asked +slowly, smiling, throwing back her head, and glancing at him from +head to foot, "that, to save my reputation, I ought to get into the +carriage?" + +Winterbourne colored; for an instant he hesitated greatly. It seemed so +strange to hear her speak that way of her "reputation." But he himself, +in fact, must speak in accordance with gallantry. The finest gallantry, +here, was simply to tell her the truth; and the truth, for Winterbourne, +as the few indications I have been able to give have made him known to +the reader, was that Daisy Miller should take Mrs. Walker's advice. He +looked at her exquisite prettiness, and then he said, very gently, "I +think you should get into the carriage." + +Daisy gave a violent laugh. "I never heard anything so stiff! If this +is improper, Mrs. Walker," she pursued, "then I am all improper, and you +must give me up. Goodbye; I hope you'll have a lovely ride!" and, with +Mr. Giovanelli, who made a triumphantly obsequious salute, she turned +away. + +Mrs. Walker sat looking after her, and there were tears in Mrs. Walker's +eyes. "Get in here, sir," she said to Winterbourne, indicating the place +beside her. The young man answered that he felt bound to accompany Miss +Miller, whereupon Mrs. Walker declared that if he refused her this +favor she would never speak to him again. She was evidently in earnest. +Winterbourne overtook Daisy and her companion, and, offering the young +girl his hand, told her that Mrs. Walker had made an imperious claim +upon his society. He expected that in answer she would say something +rather free, something to commit herself still further to that +"recklessness" from which Mrs. Walker had so charitably endeavored to +dissuade her. But she only shook his hand, hardly looking at him, while +Mr. Giovanelli bade him farewell with a too emphatic flourish of the +hat. + +Winterbourne was not in the best possible humor as he took his seat in +Mrs. Walker's victoria. "That was not clever of you," he said candidly, +while the vehicle mingled again with the throng of carriages. + +"In such a case," his companion answered, "I don't wish to be clever; I +wish to be EARNEST!" + +"Well, your earnestness has only offended her and put her off." + +"It has happened very well," said Mrs. Walker. "If she is so perfectly +determined to compromise herself, the sooner one knows it the better; +one can act accordingly." + +"I suspect she meant no harm," Winterbourne rejoined. + +"So I thought a month ago. But she has been going too far." + +"What has she been doing?" + +"Everything that is not done here. Flirting with any man she could pick +up; sitting in corners with mysterious Italians; dancing all the evening +with the same partners; receiving visits at eleven o'clock at night. Her +mother goes away when visitors come." + +"But her brother," said Winterbourne, laughing, "sits up till midnight." + +"He must be edified by what he sees. I'm told that at their hotel +everyone is talking about her, and that a smile goes round among all the +servants when a gentleman comes and asks for Miss Miller." + +"The servants be hanged!" said Winterbourne angrily. "The poor girl's +only fault," he presently added, "is that she is very uncultivated." + +"She is naturally indelicate," Mrs. Walker declared. + +"Take that example this morning. How long had you known her at Vevey?" + +"A couple of days." + +"Fancy, then, her making it a personal matter that you should have left +the place!" + +Winterbourne was silent for some moments; then he said, "I suspect, Mrs. +Walker, that you and I have lived too long at Geneva!" And he added a +request that she should inform him with what particular design she had +made him enter her carriage. + +"I wished to beg you to cease your relations with Miss Miller--not to +flirt with her--to give her no further opportunity to expose herself--to +let her alone, in short." + +"I'm afraid I can't do that," said Winterbourne. "I like her extremely." + +"All the more reason that you shouldn't help her to make a scandal." + +"There shall be nothing scandalous in my attentions to her." + +"There certainly will be in the way she takes them. But I have said what +I had on my conscience," Mrs. Walker pursued. "If you wish to rejoin the +young lady I will put you down. Here, by the way, you have a chance." + +The carriage was traversing that part of the Pincian Garden that +overhangs the wall of Rome and overlooks the beautiful Villa Borghese. +It is bordered by a large parapet, near which there are several seats. +One of the seats at a distance was occupied by a gentleman and a lady, +toward whom Mrs. Walker gave a toss of her head. At the same moment +these persons rose and walked toward the parapet. Winterbourne had asked +the coachman to stop; he now descended from the carriage. His companion +looked at him a moment in silence; then, while he raised his hat, she +drove majestically away. Winterbourne stood there; he had turned his +eyes toward Daisy and her cavalier. They evidently saw no one; they were +too deeply occupied with each other. When they reached the low garden +wall, they stood a moment looking off at the great flat-topped pine +clusters of the Villa Borghese; then Giovanelli seated himself, +familiarly, upon the broad ledge of the wall. The western sun in the +opposite sky sent out a brilliant shaft through a couple of cloud bars, +whereupon Daisy's companion took her parasol out of her hands and opened +it. She came a little nearer, and he held the parasol over her; then, +still holding it, he let it rest upon her shoulder, so that both of +their heads were hidden from Winterbourne. This young man lingered a +moment, then he began to walk. But he walked--not toward the couple with +the parasol; toward the residence of his aunt, Mrs. Costello. + +He flattered himself on the following day that there was no smiling +among the servants when he, at least, asked for Mrs. Miller at her +hotel. This lady and her daughter, however, were not at home; and on +the next day after, repeating his visit, Winterbourne again had the +misfortune not to find them. Mrs. Walker's party took place on the +evening of the third day, and, in spite of the frigidity of his last +interview with the hostess, Winterbourne was among the guests. Mrs. +Walker was one of those American ladies who, while residing abroad, make +a point, in their own phrase, of studying European society, and she +had on this occasion collected several specimens of her diversely born +fellow mortals to serve, as it were, as textbooks. When Winterbourne +arrived, Daisy Miller was not there, but in a few moments he saw her +mother come in alone, very shyly and ruefully. Mrs. Miller's hair +above her exposed-looking temples was more frizzled than ever. As she +approached Mrs. Walker, Winterbourne also drew near. + +"You see, I've come all alone," said poor Mrs. Miller. "I'm so +frightened; I don't know what to do. It's the first time I've ever been +to a party alone, especially in this country. I wanted to bring Randolph +or Eugenio, or someone, but Daisy just pushed me off by myself. I ain't +used to going round alone." + +"And does not your daughter intend to favor us with her society?" +demanded Mrs. Walker impressively. + +"Well, Daisy's all dressed," said Mrs. Miller with that accent of the +dispassionate, if not of the philosophic, historian with which she +always recorded the current incidents of her daughter's career. "She got +dressed on purpose before dinner. But she's got a friend of hers there; +that gentleman--the Italian--that she wanted to bring. They've got going +at the piano; it seems as if they couldn't leave off. Mr. Giovanelli +sings splendidly. But I guess they'll come before very long," concluded +Mrs. Miller hopefully. + +"I'm sorry she should come in that way," said Mrs. Walker. + +"Well, I told her that there was no use in her getting dressed before +dinner if she was going to wait three hours," responded Daisy's mamma. +"I didn't see the use of her putting on such a dress as that to sit +round with Mr. Giovanelli." + +"This is most horrible!" said Mrs. Walker, turning away and addressing +herself to Winterbourne. "Elle s'affiche. It's her revenge for my having +ventured to remonstrate with her. When she comes, I shall not speak to +her." + +Daisy came after eleven o'clock; but she was not, on such an occasion, +a young lady to wait to be spoken to. She rustled forward in radiant +loveliness, smiling and chattering, carrying a large bouquet, and +attended by Mr. Giovanelli. Everyone stopped talking and turned and +looked at her. She came straight to Mrs. Walker. "I'm afraid you thought +I never was coming, so I sent mother off to tell you. I wanted to make +Mr. Giovanelli practice some things before he came; you know he sings +beautifully, and I want you to ask him to sing. This is Mr. Giovanelli; +you know I introduced him to you; he's got the most lovely voice, and +he knows the most charming set of songs. I made him go over them this +evening on purpose; we had the greatest time at the hotel." Of all +this Daisy delivered herself with the sweetest, brightest audibleness, +looking now at her hostess and now round the room, while she gave a +series of little pats, round her shoulders, to the edges of her dress. +"Is there anyone I know?" she asked. + +"I think every one knows you!" said Mrs. Walker pregnantly, and she gave +a very cursory greeting to Mr. Giovanelli. This gentleman bore himself +gallantly. He smiled and bowed and showed his white teeth; he curled his +mustaches and rolled his eyes and performed all the proper functions +of a handsome Italian at an evening party. He sang very prettily half +a dozen songs, though Mrs. Walker afterward declared that she had been +quite unable to find out who asked him. It was apparently not Daisy who +had given him his orders. Daisy sat at a distance from the piano, and +though she had publicly, as it were, professed a high admiration for his +singing, talked, not inaudibly, while it was going on. + +"It's a pity these rooms are so small; we can't dance," she said to +Winterbourne, as if she had seen him five minutes before. + +"I am not sorry we can't dance," Winterbourne answered; "I don't dance." + +"Of course you don't dance; you're too stiff," said Miss Daisy. "I hope +you enjoyed your drive with Mrs. Walker!" + +"No. I didn't enjoy it; I preferred walking with you." + +"We paired off: that was much better," said Daisy. "But did you ever +hear anything so cool as Mrs. Walker's wanting me to get into her +carriage and drop poor Mr. Giovanelli, and under the pretext that it was +proper? People have different ideas! It would have been most unkind; he +had been talking about that walk for ten days." + +"He should not have talked about it at all," said Winterbourne; "he +would never have proposed to a young lady of this country to walk about +the streets with him." + +"About the streets?" cried Daisy with her pretty stare. "Where, then, +would he have proposed to her to walk? The Pincio is not the streets, +either; and I, thank goodness, am not a young lady of this country. The +young ladies of this country have a dreadfully poky time of it, so far +as I can learn; I don't see why I should change my habits for THEM." + +"I am afraid your habits are those of a flirt," said Winterbourne +gravely. + +"Of course they are," she cried, giving him her little smiling stare +again. "I'm a fearful, frightful flirt! Did you ever hear of a nice girl +that was not? But I suppose you will tell me now that I am not a nice +girl." + +"You're a very nice girl; but I wish you would flirt with me, and me +only," said Winterbourne. + +"Ah! thank you--thank you very much; you are the last man I should think +of flirting with. As I have had the pleasure of informing you, you are +too stiff." + +"You say that too often," said Winterbourne. + +Daisy gave a delighted laugh. "If I could have the sweet hope of making +you angry, I should say it again." + +"Don't do that; when I am angry I'm stiffer than ever. But if you won't +flirt with me, do cease, at least, to flirt with your friend at the +piano; they don't understand that sort of thing here." + +"I thought they understood nothing else!" exclaimed Daisy. + +"Not in young unmarried women." + +"It seems to me much more proper in young unmarried women than in old +married ones," Daisy declared. + +"Well," said Winterbourne, "when you deal with natives you must go +by the custom of the place. Flirting is a purely American custom; +it doesn't exist here. So when you show yourself in public with Mr. +Giovanelli, and without your mother--" + +"Gracious! poor Mother!" interposed Daisy. + +"Though you may be flirting, Mr. Giovanelli is not; he means something +else." + +"He isn't preaching, at any rate," said Daisy with vivacity. "And if you +want very much to know, we are neither of us flirting; we are too good +friends for that: we are very intimate friends." + +"Ah!" rejoined Winterbourne, "if you are in love with each other, it is +another affair." + +She had allowed him up to this point to talk so frankly that he had no +expectation of shocking her by this ejaculation; but she immediately got +up, blushing visibly, and leaving him to exclaim mentally that +little American flirts were the queerest creatures in the world. "Mr. +Giovanelli, at least," she said, giving her interlocutor a single +glance, "never says such very disagreeable things to me." + +Winterbourne was bewildered; he stood, staring. Mr. Giovanelli had +finished singing. He left the piano and came over to Daisy. "Won't you +come into the other room and have some tea?" he asked, bending before +her with his ornamental smile. + +Daisy turned to Winterbourne, beginning to smile again. He was still +more perplexed, for this inconsequent smile made nothing clear, though +it seemed to prove, indeed, that she had a sweetness and softness that +reverted instinctively to the pardon of offenses. "It has never occurred +to Mr. Winterbourne to offer me any tea," she said with her little +tormenting manner. + +"I have offered you advice," Winterbourne rejoined. + +"I prefer weak tea!" cried Daisy, and she went off with the brilliant +Giovanelli. She sat with him in the adjoining room, in the embrasure +of the window, for the rest of the evening. There was an interesting +performance at the piano, but neither of these young people gave heed +to it. When Daisy came to take leave of Mrs. Walker, this lady +conscientiously repaired the weakness of which she had been guilty at +the moment of the young girl's arrival. She turned her back straight +upon Miss Miller and left her to depart with what grace she might. +Winterbourne was standing near the door; he saw it all. Daisy turned +very pale and looked at her mother, but Mrs. Miller was humbly +unconscious of any violation of the usual social forms. She appeared, +indeed, to have felt an incongruous impulse to draw attention to her own +striking observance of them. "Good night, Mrs. Walker," she said; "we've +had a beautiful evening. You see, if I let Daisy come to parties without +me, I don't want her to go away without me." Daisy turned away, looking +with a pale, grave face at the circle near the door; Winterbourne saw +that, for the first moment, she was too much shocked and puzzled even +for indignation. He on his side was greatly touched. + +"That was very cruel," he said to Mrs. Walker. + +"She never enters my drawing room again!" replied his hostess. + +Since Winterbourne was not to meet her in Mrs. Walker's drawing room, he +went as often as possible to Mrs. Miller's hotel. The ladies were rarely +at home, but when he found them, the devoted Giovanelli was always +present. Very often the brilliant little Roman was in the drawing room +with Daisy alone, Mrs. Miller being apparently constantly of the opinion +that discretion is the better part of surveillance. Winterbourne +noted, at first with surprise, that Daisy on these occasions was never +embarrassed or annoyed by his own entrance; but he very presently began +to feel that she had no more surprises for him; the unexpected in her +behavior was the only thing to expect. She showed no displeasure at +her tete-a-tete with Giovanelli being interrupted; she could chatter as +freshly and freely with two gentlemen as with one; there was always, +in her conversation, the same odd mixture of audacity and puerility. +Winterbourne remarked to himself that if she was seriously interested in +Giovanelli, it was very singular that she should not take more trouble +to preserve the sanctity of their interviews; and he liked her the more +for her innocent-looking indifference and her apparently inexhaustible +good humor. He could hardly have said why, but she seemed to him a girl +who would never be jealous. At the risk of exciting a somewhat derisive +smile on the reader's part, I may affirm that with regard to the women +who had hitherto interested him, it very often seemed to Winterbourne +among the possibilities that, given certain contingencies, he should be +afraid--literally afraid--of these ladies; he had a pleasant sense that +he should never be afraid of Daisy Miller. It must be added that this +sentiment was not altogether flattering to Daisy; it was part of his +conviction, or rather of his apprehension, that she would prove a very +light young person. + +But she was evidently very much interested in Giovanelli. She looked at +him whenever he spoke; she was perpetually telling him to do this and +to do that; she was constantly "chaffing" and abusing him. She appeared +completely to have forgotten that Winterbourne had said anything to +displease her at Mrs. Walker's little party. One Sunday afternoon, +having gone to St. Peter's with his aunt, Winterbourne perceived +Daisy strolling about the great church in company with the inevitable +Giovanelli. Presently he pointed out the young girl and her cavalier to +Mrs. Costello. This lady looked at them a moment through her eyeglass, +and then she said: + +"That's what makes you so pensive in these days, eh?" + +"I had not the least idea I was pensive," said the young man. + +"You are very much preoccupied; you are thinking of something." + +"And what is it," he asked, "that you accuse me of thinking of?" + +"Of that young lady's--Miss Baker's, Miss Chandler's--what's her +name?--Miss Miller's intrigue with that little barber's block." + +"Do you call it an intrigue," Winterbourne asked--"an affair that goes +on with such peculiar publicity?" + +"That's their folly," said Mrs. Costello; "it's not their merit." + +"No," rejoined Winterbourne, with something of that pensiveness to which +his aunt had alluded. "I don't believe that there is anything to be +called an intrigue." + +"I have heard a dozen people speak of it; they say she is quite carried +away by him." + +"They are certainly very intimate," said Winterbourne. + +Mrs. Costello inspected the young couple again with her optical +instrument. "He is very handsome. One easily sees how it is. She thinks +him the most elegant man in the world, the finest gentleman. She has +never seen anything like him; he is better, even, than the courier. +It was the courier probably who introduced him; and if he succeeds in +marrying the young lady, the courier will come in for a magnificent +commission." + +"I don't believe she thinks of marrying him," said Winterbourne, "and I +don't believe he hopes to marry her." + +"You may be very sure she thinks of nothing. She goes on from day to +day, from hour to hour, as they did in the Golden Age. I can imagine +nothing more vulgar. And at the same time," added Mrs. Costello, "depend +upon it that she may tell you any moment that she is 'engaged.'" + +"I think that is more than Giovanelli expects," said Winterbourne. + +"Who is Giovanelli?" + +"The little Italian. I have asked questions about him and learned +something. He is apparently a perfectly respectable little man. I +believe he is, in a small way, a cavaliere avvocato. But he doesn't +move in what are called the first circles. I think it is really not +absolutely impossible that the courier introduced him. He is evidently +immensely charmed with Miss Miller. If she thinks him the finest +gentleman in the world, he, on his side, has never found himself in +personal contact with such splendor, such opulence, such expensiveness +as this young lady's. And then she must seem to him wonderfully pretty +and interesting. I rather doubt that he dreams of marrying her. That +must appear to him too impossible a piece of luck. He has nothing but +his handsome face to offer, and there is a substantial Mr. Miller in +that mysterious land of dollars. Giovanelli knows that he hasn't a title +to offer. If he were only a count or a marchese! He must wonder at his +luck, at the way they have taken him up." + +"He accounts for it by his handsome face and thinks Miss Miller a young +lady qui se passe ses fantaisies!" said Mrs. Costello. + +"It is very true," Winterbourne pursued, "that Daisy and her mamma have +not yet risen to that stage of--what shall I call it?--of culture at +which the idea of catching a count or a marchese begins. I believe that +they are intellectually incapable of that conception." + +"Ah! but the avvocato can't believe it," said Mrs. Costello. + +Of the observation excited by Daisy's "intrigue," Winterbourne gathered +that day at St. Peter's sufficient evidence. A dozen of the American +colonists in Rome came to talk with Mrs. Costello, who sat on a little +portable stool at the base of one of the great pilasters. The vesper +service was going forward in splendid chants and organ tones in the +adjacent choir, and meanwhile, between Mrs. Costello and her friends, +there was a great deal said about poor little Miss Miller's going really +"too far." Winterbourne was not pleased with what he heard, but when, +coming out upon the great steps of the church, he saw Daisy, who had +emerged before him, get into an open cab with her accomplice and roll +away through the cynical streets of Rome, he could not deny to himself +that she was going very far indeed. He felt very sorry for her--not +exactly that he believed that she had completely lost her head, but +because it was painful to hear so much that was pretty, and undefended, +and natural assigned to a vulgar place among the categories of disorder. +He made an attempt after this to give a hint to Mrs. Miller. He met one +day in the Corso a friend, a tourist like himself, who had just come +out of the Doria Palace, where he had been walking through the beautiful +gallery. His friend talked for a moment about the superb portrait +of Innocent X by Velasquez which hangs in one of the cabinets of the +palace, and then said, "And in the same cabinet, by the way, I had the +pleasure of contemplating a picture of a different kind--that pretty +American girl whom you pointed out to me last week." In answer to +Winterbourne's inquiries, his friend narrated that the pretty American +girl--prettier than ever--was seated with a companion in the secluded +nook in which the great papal portrait was enshrined. + +"Who was her companion?" asked Winterbourne. + +"A little Italian with a bouquet in his buttonhole. The girl is +delightfully pretty, but I thought I understood from you the other day +that she was a young lady du meilleur monde." + +"So she is!" answered Winterbourne; and having assured himself that his +informant had seen Daisy and her companion but five minutes before, he +jumped into a cab and went to call on Mrs. Miller. She was at home; but +she apologized to him for receiving him in Daisy's absence. + +"She's gone out somewhere with Mr. Giovanelli," said Mrs. Miller. "She's +always going round with Mr. Giovanelli." + +"I have noticed that they are very intimate," Winterbourne observed. + +"Oh, it seems as if they couldn't live without each other!" said Mrs. +Miller. "Well, he's a real gentleman, anyhow. I keep telling Daisy she's +engaged!" + +"And what does Daisy say?" + +"Oh, she says she isn't engaged. But she might as well be!" this +impartial parent resumed; "she goes on as if she was. But I've made Mr. +Giovanelli promise to tell me, if SHE doesn't. I should want to write to +Mr. Miller about it--shouldn't you?" + +Winterbourne replied that he certainly should; and the state of mind of +Daisy's mamma struck him as so unprecedented in the annals of parental +vigilance that he gave up as utterly irrelevant the attempt to place her +upon her guard. + +After this Daisy was never at home, and Winterbourne ceased to meet her +at the houses of their common acquaintances, because, as he perceived, +these shrewd people had quite made up their minds that she was going too +far. They ceased to invite her; and they intimated that they desired to +express to observant Europeans the great truth that, though Miss +Daisy Miller was a young American lady, her behavior was not +representative--was regarded by her compatriots as abnormal. +Winterbourne wondered how she felt about all the cold shoulders that +were turned toward her, and sometimes it annoyed him to suspect that +she did not feel at all. He said to himself that she was too light and +childish, too uncultivated and unreasoning, too provincial, to have +reflected upon her ostracism, or even to have perceived it. Then at +other moments he believed that she carried about in her elegant and +irresponsible little organism a defiant, passionate, perfectly observant +consciousness of the impression she produced. He asked himself whether +Daisy's defiance came from the consciousness of innocence, or from her +being, essentially, a young person of the reckless class. It must be +admitted that holding one's self to a belief in Daisy's "innocence" came +to seem to Winterbourne more and more a matter of fine-spun gallantry. +As I have already had occasion to relate, he was angry at finding +himself reduced to chopping logic about this young lady; he was vexed at +his want of instinctive certitude as to how far her eccentricities were +generic, national, and how far they were personal. From either view +of them he had somehow missed her, and now it was too late. She was +"carried away" by Mr. Giovanelli. + +A few days after his brief interview with her mother, he encountered her +in that beautiful abode of flowering desolation known as the Palace of +the Caesars. The early Roman spring had filled the air with bloom and +perfume, and the rugged surface of the Palatine was muffled with tender +verdure. Daisy was strolling along the top of one of those great mounds +of ruin that are embanked with mossy marble and paved with monumental +inscriptions. It seemed to him that Rome had never been so lovely as +just then. He stood, looking off at the enchanting harmony of line and +color that remotely encircles the city, inhaling the softly humid odors, +and feeling the freshness of the year and the antiquity of the place +reaffirm themselves in mysterious interfusion. It seemed to him also +that Daisy had never looked so pretty, but this had been an observation +of his whenever he met her. Giovanelli was at her side, and Giovanelli, +too, wore an aspect of even unwonted brilliancy. + +"Well," said Daisy, "I should think you would be lonesome!" + +"Lonesome?" asked Winterbourne. + +"You are always going round by yourself. Can't you get anyone to walk +with you?" + +"I am not so fortunate," said Winterbourne, "as your companion." + +Giovanelli, from the first, had treated Winterbourne with distinguished +politeness. He listened with a deferential air to his remarks; he +laughed punctiliously at his pleasantries; he seemed disposed to testify +to his belief that Winterbourne was a superior young man. He carried +himself in no degree like a jealous wooer; he had obviously a great deal +of tact; he had no objection to your expecting a little humility of him. +It even seemed to Winterbourne at times that Giovanelli would find a +certain mental relief in being able to have a private understanding with +him--to say to him, as an intelligent man, that, bless you, HE knew +how extraordinary was this young lady, and didn't flatter himself with +delusive--or at least TOO delusive--hopes of matrimony and dollars. On +this occasion he strolled away from his companion to pluck a sprig of +almond blossom, which he carefully arranged in his buttonhole. + +"I know why you say that," said Daisy, watching Giovanelli. "Because you +think I go round too much with HIM." And she nodded at her attendant. + +"Every one thinks so--if you care to know," said Winterbourne. + +"Of course I care to know!" Daisy exclaimed seriously. "But I don't +believe it. They are only pretending to be shocked. They don't really +care a straw what I do. Besides, I don't go round so much." + +"I think you will find they do care. They will show it disagreeably." + +Daisy looked at him a moment. "How disagreeably?" + +"Haven't you noticed anything?" Winterbourne asked. + +"I have noticed you. But I noticed you were as stiff as an umbrella the +first time I saw you." + +"You will find I am not so stiff as several others," said Winterbourne, +smiling. + +"How shall I find it?" + +"By going to see the others." + +"What will they do to me?" + +"They will give you the cold shoulder. Do you know what that means?" + +Daisy was looking at him intently; she began to color. "Do you mean as +Mrs. Walker did the other night?" + +"Exactly!" said Winterbourne. + +She looked away at Giovanelli, who was decorating himself with his +almond blossom. Then looking back at Winterbourne, "I shouldn't think +you would let people be so unkind!" she said. + +"How can I help it?" he asked. + +"I should think you would say something." + +"I do say something;" and he paused a moment. "I say that your mother +tells me that she believes you are engaged." + +"Well, she does," said Daisy very simply. + +Winterbourne began to laugh. "And does Randolph believe it?" he asked. + +"I guess Randolph doesn't believe anything," said Daisy. Randolph's +skepticism excited Winterbourne to further hilarity, and he observed +that Giovanelli was coming back to them. Daisy, observing it too, +addressed herself again to her countryman. "Since you have mentioned +it," she said, "I AM engaged." * * * Winterbourne looked at her; he had +stopped laughing. "You don't believe!" she added. + +He was silent a moment; and then, "Yes, I believe it," he said. + +"Oh, no, you don't!" she answered. "Well, then--I am not!" + +The young girl and her cicerone were on their way to the gate of the +enclosure, so that Winterbourne, who had but lately entered, presently +took leave of them. A week afterward he went to dine at a beautiful +villa on the Caelian Hill, and, on arriving, dismissed his hired +vehicle. The evening was charming, and he promised himself the +satisfaction of walking home beneath the Arch of Constantine and past +the vaguely lighted monuments of the Forum. There was a waning moon in +the sky, and her radiance was not brilliant, but she was veiled in a +thin cloud curtain which seemed to diffuse and equalize it. When, on his +return from the villa (it was eleven o'clock), Winterbourne approached +the dusky circle of the Colosseum, it recurred to him, as a lover of +the picturesque, that the interior, in the pale moonshine, would be well +worth a glance. He turned aside and walked to one of the empty arches, +near which, as he observed, an open carriage--one of the little Roman +streetcabs--was stationed. Then he passed in, among the cavernous +shadows of the great structure, and emerged upon the clear and silent +arena. The place had never seemed to him more impressive. One-half of +the gigantic circus was in deep shade, the other was sleeping in the +luminous dusk. As he stood there he began to murmur Byron's famous +lines, out of "Manfred," but before he had finished his quotation +he remembered that if nocturnal meditations in the Colosseum are +recommended by the poets, they are deprecated by the doctors. The +historic atmosphere was there, certainly; but the historic atmosphere, +scientifically considered, was no better than a villainous miasma. +Winterbourne walked to the middle of the arena, to take a more general +glance, intending thereafter to make a hasty retreat. The great cross in +the center was covered with shadow; it was only as he drew near it that +he made it out distinctly. Then he saw that two persons were stationed +upon the low steps which formed its base. One of these was a woman, +seated; her companion was standing in front of her. + +Presently the sound of the woman's voice came to him distinctly in the +warm night air. "Well, he looks at us as one of the old lions or tigers +may have looked at the Christian martyrs!" These were the words he +heard, in the familiar accent of Miss Daisy Miller. + +"Let us hope he is not very hungry," responded the ingenious Giovanelli. +"He will have to take me first; you will serve for dessert!" + +Winterbourne stopped, with a sort of horror, and, it must be added, with +a sort of relief. It was as if a sudden illumination had been flashed +upon the ambiguity of Daisy's behavior, and the riddle had become easy +to read. She was a young lady whom a gentleman need no longer be +at pains to respect. He stood there, looking at her--looking at her +companion and not reflecting that though he saw them vaguely, he himself +must have been more brightly visible. He felt angry with himself that he +had bothered so much about the right way of regarding Miss Daisy Miller. +Then, as he was going to advance again, he checked himself, not from the +fear that he was doing her injustice, but from a sense of the danger +of appearing unbecomingly exhilarated by this sudden revulsion from +cautious criticism. He turned away toward the entrance of the place, +but, as he did so, he heard Daisy speak again. + +"Why, it was Mr. Winterbourne! He saw me, and he cuts me!" + +What a clever little reprobate she was, and how smartly she played at +injured innocence! But he wouldn't cut her. Winterbourne came forward +again and went toward the great cross. Daisy had got up; Giovanelli +lifted his hat. Winterbourne had now begun to think simply of the +craziness, from a sanitary point of view, of a delicate young girl +lounging away the evening in this nest of malaria. What if she WERE +a clever little reprobate? that was no reason for her dying of the +perniciosa. "How long have you been here?" he asked almost brutally. + +Daisy, lovely in the flattering moonlight, looked at him a moment. +Then--"All the evening," she answered, gently. * * * "I never saw +anything so pretty." + +"I am afraid," said Winterbourne, "that you will not think Roman fever +very pretty. This is the way people catch it. I wonder," he added, +turning to Giovanelli, "that you, a native Roman, should countenance +such a terrible indiscretion." + +"Ah," said the handsome native, "for myself I am not afraid." + +"Neither am I--for you! I am speaking for this young lady." + +Giovanelli lifted his well-shaped eyebrows and showed his brilliant +teeth. But he took Winterbourne's rebuke with docility. "I told the +signorina it was a grave indiscretion, but when was the signorina ever +prudent?" + +"I never was sick, and I don't mean to be!" the signorina declared. "I +don't look like much, but I'm healthy! I was bound to see the Colosseum +by moonlight; I shouldn't have wanted to go home without that; and we +have had the most beautiful time, haven't we, Mr. Giovanelli? If there +has been any danger, Eugenio can give me some pills. He has got some +splendid pills." + +"I should advise you," said Winterbourne, "to drive home as fast as +possible and take one!" + +"What you say is very wise," Giovanelli rejoined. "I will go and make +sure the carriage is at hand." And he went forward rapidly. + +Daisy followed with Winterbourne. He kept looking at her; she seemed +not in the least embarrassed. Winterbourne said nothing; Daisy chattered +about the beauty of the place. "Well, I HAVE seen the Colosseum by +moonlight!" she exclaimed. "That's one good thing." Then, noticing +Winterbourne's silence, she asked him why he didn't speak. He made +no answer; he only began to laugh. They passed under one of the dark +archways; Giovanelli was in front with the carriage. Here Daisy stopped +a moment, looking at the young American. "DID you believe I was engaged, +the other day?" she asked. + +"It doesn't matter what I believed the other day," said Winterbourne, +still laughing. + +"Well, what do you believe now?" + +"I believe that it makes very little difference whether you are engaged +or not!" + +He felt the young girl's pretty eyes fixed upon him through the thick +gloom of the archway; she was apparently going to answer. But Giovanelli +hurried her forward. "Quick! quick!" he said; "if we get in by midnight +we are quite safe." + +Daisy took her seat in the carriage, and the fortunate Italian placed +himself beside her. "Don't forget Eugenio's pills!" said Winterbourne as +he lifted his hat. + +"I don't care," said Daisy in a little strange tone, "whether I have +Roman fever or not!" Upon this the cab driver cracked his whip, and they +rolled away over the desultory patches of the antique pavement. + +Winterbourne, to do him justice, as it were, mentioned to no one that +he had encountered Miss Miller, at midnight, in the Colosseum with a +gentleman; but nevertheless, a couple of days later, the fact of her +having been there under these circumstances was known to every member +of the little American circle, and commented accordingly. Winterbourne +reflected that they had of course known it at the hotel, and that, after +Daisy's return, there had been an exchange of remarks between the porter +and the cab driver. But the young man was conscious, at the same moment, +that it had ceased to be a matter of serious regret to him that the +little American flirt should be "talked about" by low-minded menials. +These people, a day or two later, had serious information to give: the +little American flirt was alarmingly ill. Winterbourne, when the rumor +came to him, immediately went to the hotel for more news. He found that +two or three charitable friends had preceded him, and that they were +being entertained in Mrs. Miller's salon by Randolph. + +"It's going round at night," said Randolph--"that's what made her sick. +She's always going round at night. I shouldn't think she'd want to, +it's so plaguy dark. You can't see anything here at night, except when +there's a moon. In America there's always a moon!" Mrs. Miller was +invisible; she was now, at least, giving her daughter the advantage of +her society. It was evident that Daisy was dangerously ill. + +Winterbourne went often to ask for news of her, and once he saw Mrs. +Miller, who, though deeply alarmed, was, rather to his surprise, +perfectly composed, and, as it appeared, a most efficient and judicious +nurse. She talked a good deal about Dr. Davis, but Winterbourne paid her +the compliment of saying to himself that she was not, after all, such +a monstrous goose. "Daisy spoke of you the other day," she said to him. +"Half the time she doesn't know what she's saying, but that time I think +she did. She gave me a message she told me to tell you. She told me to +tell you that she never was engaged to that handsome Italian. I am sure +I am very glad; Mr. Giovanelli hasn't been near us since she was taken +ill. I thought he was so much of a gentleman; but I don't call that +very polite! A lady told me that he was afraid I was angry with him for +taking Daisy round at night. Well, so I am, but I suppose he knows I'm a +lady. I would scorn to scold him. Anyway, she says she's not engaged. I +don't know why she wanted you to know, but she said to me three times, +'Mind you tell Mr. Winterbourne.' And then she told me to ask if you +remembered the time you went to that castle in Switzerland. But I said +I wouldn't give any such messages as that. Only, if she is not engaged, +I'm sure I'm glad to know it." + +But, as Winterbourne had said, it mattered very little. A week after +this, the poor girl died; it had been a terrible case of the fever. +Daisy's grave was in the little Protestant cemetery, in an angle of +the wall of imperial Rome, beneath the cypresses and the thick spring +flowers. Winterbourne stood there beside it, with a number of other +mourners, a number larger than the scandal excited by the young lady's +career would have led you to expect. Near him stood Giovanelli, who came +nearer still before Winterbourne turned away. Giovanelli was very pale: +on this occasion he had no flower in his buttonhole; he seemed to wish +to say something. At last he said, "She was the most beautiful young +lady I ever saw, and the most amiable;" and then he added in a moment, +"and she was the most innocent." + +Winterbourne looked at him and presently repeated his words, "And the +most innocent?" + +"The most innocent!" + +Winterbourne felt sore and angry. "Why the devil," he asked, "did you +take her to that fatal place?" + +Mr. Giovanelli's urbanity was apparently imperturbable. He looked on the +ground a moment, and then he said, "For myself I had no fear; and she +wanted to go." + +"That was no reason!" Winterbourne declared. + +The subtle Roman again dropped his eyes. "If she had lived, I should +have got nothing. She would never have married me, I am sure." + +"She would never have married you?" + +"For a moment I hoped so. But no. I am sure." + +Winterbourne listened to him: he stood staring at the raw protuberance +among the April daisies. When he turned away again, Mr. Giovanelli, with +his light, slow step, had retired. + +Winterbourne almost immediately left Rome; but the following summer he +again met his aunt, Mrs. Costello at Vevey. Mrs. Costello was fond of +Vevey. In the interval Winterbourne had often thought of Daisy Miller +and her mystifying manners. One day he spoke of her to his aunt--said it +was on his conscience that he had done her injustice. + +"I am sure I don't know," said Mrs. Costello. "How did your injustice +affect her?" + +"She sent me a message before her death which I didn't understand at the +time; but I have understood it since. She would have appreciated one's +esteem." + +"Is that a modest way," asked Mrs. Costello, "of saying that she would +have reciprocated one's affection?" + +Winterbourne offered no answer to this question; but he presently said, +"You were right in that remark that you made last summer. I was booked +to make a mistake. I have lived too long in foreign parts." + +Nevertheless, he went back to live at Geneva, whence there continue to +come the most contradictory accounts of his motives of sojourn: a report +that he is "studying" hard--an intimation that he is much interested in +a very clever foreign lady. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Daisy Miller, by Henry James + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAISY MILLER *** + +***** This file should be named 208.txt or 208.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/208/ + +Produced by Judith Boss + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |