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.