Chapter: 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.

 Winterbourne asks his aunt, Mrs. Costello, about the Miller family. The aunt says that she has seen them and heard things about them, and that she has avoided them. Winterbourne mentions a few things about his aunt, such as her apparently strong influence in Washington, and her minute understanding of the complex social hierarchies of New York City. She used this city as her reason, he says, for being so "exclusive." Mrs. Costello seems to think that the Millers occupy a low place in the social scale. She calls them "common." She admits that Daisy dresses very well, but that all such American woman dress well. She also talks about a strange intimacy with their courier, who they treat as a member of the family and a gentleman. Winterbourne tells his aunt about his encounter with Daisy, and he tells her about his offer to introduce Daisy to her to guarantee his respectability. Mrs. Costello surprises Winterbourne by using Daisy's response to Winterbourne's boldness as a reason to refuse to meet her. She warns Winterbourne not to "meddle" with Daisy any longer because he is too innocent. Winterbourne finds Daisy later that evening in the garden. She mentions her mother's weak constitution and frequent illness. They walk around for a little while, and Daisy says that she heard a great deal about Mrs. Costello from the chambermaid, including that she is very exclusive. Daisy says that she would like to meet her, and Winterbourne tries to make up something to avoid having to tell her what Mrs. Costello said. She quickly guesses that Mrs. Costello won't see her. To Winterbourne's surprise, Daisy seems not to be hurt or offended. Mrs. Miller appears but doesn't approach. Daisy says that she is staying away because of Winterbourne. She says that her mother is quite timid, but that she always introduces her gentleman friends. Daisy introduces him to her mother, and Winterbourne remarks to himself that though she is common, she can be graceful. Winterbourne notices that the older woman is decorated with large diamonds and is well dressed, but that she otherwise looks unimpressive. Daisy asks her mother why she is wandering around, and they begin a conversation about Randolph's erratic sleeping habits that Winterbourne also shares. The topic of the castle comes up, and Daisy declares that she is going to tour it with Winterbourne. Mrs. Miller doesn't respond, and Winterbourne assumes that she disapproves. Instead, though, she asks how they plan to get there. She makes a feeble attempt to suggest that her daughter wait until Italy to tour any more castles, but it fails. Winterbourne offers Mrs. Miller the opportunity to join them on the trip, but she says that Daisy should go alone. Winterbourne observes that Mrs. Miller is quite different from the "vigilant" mothers that he encountered in Geneva. Daisy interrupts Winterbourne's thinking to ask him if he would take her out in a boat. He agrees, but Mrs. Miller quickly objects. Then it seems to become a game. Mrs. Miller seems to make a few weak attempts to dissuade them from rowing on Lake Geneva at night, while Winterbourne entreats Daisy to join him in a boat, and Daisy doesn't move. Eventually, Eugenio appears to tell them that he has succeeded in getting Randolph to go to sleep. Mrs. Miller appeals to him to intervene, and he suggests to Daisy that she not go out in the boat. She seems to try to shock Eugenio, but she fails. In the end, she says that she was hoping he would "make a fuss," and leaves him, with her mother and Eugenio, to go to bed. She says that she hopes Winterbourne is "disappointed, or disgusted, or something." Winterbourne says he is puzzled, but he decides that he would still very much like to go off with her somewhere. After this incident, the story jumps to the trip to the castle. Winterbourne meets Daisy in the large hotel hall, and as he watches her approach he fantasizes that they are going to elope together. They cross to the castle on a steamer, while Daisy prattles. She eventually tells Winterbourne that he looks "grim," which he objects to. He says he is quite happy. They arrive at the castle, and Winterbourne soon observes that Daisy doesn't seem that interested in it. He pays the custodian to allow them extra time alone, and Daisy asks him several questions about himself and his family. She eventually suggests that he become Randolph's teacher and travel with them to Italy. Instead, he admits that he needs to return to Geneva the next day. She assumes that he must hurry back because of a romantic interest, and he denies it. She pretends to be offended, and she spends the rest of the visit attacking the imaginary woman. Daisy asks Winterbourne to visit them in Rome, and Winterbourne replies that he certainly will. His aunt, he says, has just taken an apartment in Rome and asked him to visit. She replies that she doesn't want him to come to Rome for his aunt, but for her. She is quiet the rest of the trip. Winterbourne tells his aunt about the trip, and her response is to reiterate her disdain and disapproval of the Miller family.

