1878
DAISY MILLER
by Henry James
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
PREFACE TO THE NEW YORK EDITION
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It was in Rome during the autumn of 1877; a friend then living there
but settled now in a South less weighted with appeals and memories
happened to mention- which she might perfectly not have done- some
simple and uninformed American lady of the previous winter, whose
young daughter, a child of nature and of freedom, accompanying her
from hotel to hotel, had 'picked up' by the wayside, with the best
conscience in the world, a good-looking Roman, of vague identity,
astonished at his luck, yet (so far as might be, by the pair) all
innocently, all serenely exhibited and introduced: this at least
till the occurrence of some small social check, some interrupting
incident, of no great gravity or dignity, and which I forget. I had
never heard, save on this showing, of the amiable but not otherwise
eminent ladies, who weren't in fact named, I think, and whose case had
merely served to point a familiar moral; and it must have been just
their want of salience that left a margin for the small pencil-mark
inveterately signifying, in such connections, 'Dramatize,
dramatize!' The result of my recognizing a few months later the
sense of my pencil-mark was the short chronicle of Daisy Miller, which
I indited in London the following spring and then addressed, with no
conditions attached, as I remember, to the editor of a magazine that
had its seat of publication at Philadelphia and had lately appeared to
appreciate my contributions. That gentleman however (an historian of
some repute) promptly returned me my missive, and with an absence of
comment that struck me at the time as rather grim- as, given the
circumstances, requiring indeed some explanation: till a friend to
whom I appealed for light, giving him the thing to read, declared it
could only have passed with the Philadelphian critic for 'an outrage
on American girlhood'. This was verily a light, and of bewildering
intensity; though I was presently to read into the matter a further
helpful inference. To the fault of being outrageous this little
composition added that of being essentially and pre-eminently a
nouvelle; a signal example in fact of that type, foredoomed at the
best, in more cases than not, to editorial disfavour. If accordingly I
was afterwards to be cradled, almost blissfully, in the conception
that Daisy at least, among my productions, might approach 'success',
such success for example, on her eventual appearance, as the state
of being promptly pirated in Boston- a sweet tribute I hadn't yet
received and was never again to know- the irony of things yet
claimed its rights, I couldn't but long continue to feel, in the
circumstance that quite a special reprobation had waited on the
first appearance in the world of the ultimately most prosperous
child of my invention. So doubly discredited, at all events, this
bantling met indulgence, with no great delay, in the eyes of my
admirable friend the late Leslie Stephen and was published in two
numbers of the Cornhill Magazine (1878).
It qualified itself in that publication and afterwards as 'a Study';
for reasons which I confess I fail to recapture unless they may have
taken account simply of a certain flatness in my poor little heroine's
literal denomination. Flatness indeed, one must have felt, was the
very sum of her story; so that perhaps after all the attached
epithet was meant but as a deprecation, addressed to the reader, of
any great critical hope of stirring scenes. It provided for mere
concentration, and on an object scant and superficially vulgar- from
which, however, a sufficiently brooding tenderness might eventually
extract a shy incongruous charm. I suppress at all events here the
appended qualification- in view of the simple truth, which ought
from the first to have been apparent to me, that my little
exhibition is made to no degree whatever in critical but, quite
inordinately and extravagantly, in poetical terms. It comes back to me
that I was at a certain hour long afterwards to have reflected, in
this connection, on the characteristic free play of the whirligig of
time. It was in Italy again- in Venice and in the prized society of an
interesting friend, now dead, with whom I happened to wait, on the
Grand Canal, at the animated water-steps of one of the hotels. The
considerable little terrace there was so disposed as to make a salient
stage for certain demonstrations on the part of two young girls,
children they, if ever, of nature and of freedom, whose use of those
resources, in the general public eye, and under our own as we sat in
the gondola, drew from the lips of a second companion, sociably afloat
with us, the remark that there before us, with no sign absent, were
a couple of attesting Daisy Millers. Then it was that, in my
charming hostess's prompt protest, the whirligig, as I have called it,
at once betrayed itself. 'How can you liken those creatures to a
figure of which the only fault is touchingly to have transmuted so
sorry a type and to have, by a poetic artifice, not only led our
judgement of it astray, but made any judgement quite impossible?' With
which this gentle lady and admirable critic turned on the author
himself. 'You know you quite falsified, by the turn you gave it, the
thing you had begun with having in mind, the thing you had had, to
satiety, the chance of "observing": your pretty perversion of it, or
your unprincipled mystification of our sense of it, does it really too
much honour- in spite of which, none the less, as anything charming or
touching always to that extent justifies itself, we after a fashion
forgive and understand you. But why waste your romance? There are
cases, too many, in which you've done it again; in which, provoked
by a spirit of observation at first no doubt sufficiently sincere, and
with the measured and felt truth fairly twitching your sleeve, you
have yielded to your incurable prejudice in favour of grace- to
whatever it is in you that makes so inordinately for form and
prettiness and pathos; not to say sometimes for misplaced drolling. Is
it that you've after all too much imagination? Those awful young women
capering at the hotel-door, they are the real little Daisy Millers
that were; whereas yours in the tale is such a one, more's the pity,
as- for pitch of the ingenuous, for quality of the artless- couldn't
possibly have been at all.' My answer to all which bristled of
course with more professions than I can or need report here; the chief
of them inevitably to the effect that my supposedly typical little
figure was of course pure poetry, and had never been anything else;
since this is what helpful imagination, in however slight a dose, ever
directly makes for. As for the original grossness of readers, I dare
say I added, that was another matter- but one which at any rate had
then quite ceased to signify.
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HENRY JAMES
1
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At the little town of Vevey, in Switzerland, there is a particularly
comfortable hotel. There are, indeed, many hotels; for the
entertainment of tourists is the business of the place, which, as many
travellers will remember, is seated upon the edge of a remarkably blue
lake- a lake that it behoves every tourist to visit. The shore of
the lake presents an unbroken array of establishments of this order,
of every category, from the 'grand hotel' of the newest fashion,
with a chalk-white front, a hundred balconies, and a dozen flags
flying from its roof, to the little Swiss pension of an elder day,
with its name inscribed in German-looking lettering upon a pink or
yellow wall, and an awkward summer-house in the angle of the garden.
One of the hotels at Vevey, however, is famous, even classical,
being distinguished from many of its upstart neighbours by an air both
of luxury and of maturity. In this region, in the month of June,
American travellers are extremely numerous; it may be said, indeed,
that Vevey assumes at this period some of the characteristics of an
American watering-place. There are sights and sounds which evoke a
vision, an echo, of Newport and Saratoga. There is a flitting hither
and thither of 'stylish' young girls, a rustling of muslin flounces, a
rattle of dance-music in the morning hours, a sound of high-pitched
voices at all times. You receive an impression of these things at
the excellent inn of the Trois Couronnes, and are transported in fancy
to the Ocean House or to Congress-Hall. But at the Trois Couronnes, it
must be added, there are other features that are much at variance with
these suggestions: neat German waiters, who look like secretaries of
legation; Russian princesses sitting in the garden; little Polish boys
walking about, held by the hand, with their governors; a view of the
snowy crest of the Dent du Midi and the picturesque towers of the
Castle of Chillon.
I hardly know whether it was the analogies or the differences that
were uppermost in the mind of a young American, who, two or three
years ago, sat in the garden of the Trois Couronnes, looking about
him, rather idly, at some of the graceful objects I have mentioned. It
was a beautiful summer morning, and in whatever fashion the young
American looked at things, they must have seemed to him charming. He
had come from Geneva the day before, by the little steamer, to see his
aunt, who was staying at the hotel- Geneva having been for a long time
his place of residence. But his aunt had a headache- his aunt had
almost always a headache- and now she was shut up in her room,
smelling camphor, so that he was at liberty to wander about. He was
some seven-and-twenty years of age; when his friends spoke of him,
they usually said that he was at Geneva, 'studying.' When his
enemies spoke of him they said- but, after all, he had no enemies;
he was an extremely amiable fellow, and universally liked. What I
should say is, simply, that when certain persons spoke of him they
affirmed that the reason of his spending so much time at Geneva was
that he was extremely devoted to a lady who lived there- a foreign
lady- a person older than himself. Very few Americans- indeed I
think none- had ever seen this lady, about whom there were some
singular stories. But Winterbourne had an old attachment for the
little metropolis of Calvinism; he had been put to school there as a
boy, and he had afterwards gone to college there- circumstances
which had led to his forming a great many youthful friendships. Many
of these he had kept, and they were a source of great satisfaction
to him.
After knocking at his aunt's door and learning that she was
indisposed, he had taken a walk about the town, and then he had come
in to his breakfast. He had now finished his breakfast, but he was
drinking a small cup of coffee, which had been served to him on a
little table in the garden by one of the waiters who looked like an
attache. At last he finished his coffee and lit a cigarette. Presently
a small boy came walking along the path- an urchin of nine or ten. The
child, who was diminutive for his years, had an aged expression of
countenance, a pale complexion, and sharp little features. He was
dressed in knickerbockers, with red stockings, which displayed his
poor little spindleshanks; he also wore a brilliant red cravat. He
carried in his hand a long alpenstock, the sharp point of which he
thrust into everything that he approached- the flowerbeds, the
garden-benches, the trains of the ladies' dresses. In front of
Winterbourne he paused, looking at him with a pair of bright,
penetrating little eyes.
'Will you give me a lump of sugar?' he asked, in a sharp, hard
little voice- a voice immature, and yet, somehow, not young.
Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him, on which his
coffee-service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugar remained.
'Yes, you may take one,' he answered; 'but I don't think sugar is good
for little boys.'
This little boy stepped forward and carefully selected three of
the coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of his
knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another place.
He poked his alpenstock, lance-fashion, into Winterbourne's bench, and
tried to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth.
'Oh, blazes; it's har-r-d!' he exclaimed, pronouncing the
adjective in a peculiar manner.
Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he might have the honour
of claiming him as a fellow-countryman. 'Take care you don't hurt your
teeth,' he said, paternally.
'I haven't got any teeth to hurt. They have all come out. I have
only got seven teeth. My mother counted them last night, and one
came out right afterwards. She said she'd slap me if any more came
out. I can't help it. It's this old Europe. It's the climate that
makes them come out. In America they didn't come out. It's these
hotels.'
Winterbourne was much amused. 'If you eat three lumps of sugar, your
mother will certainly slap you,' he said.
'She's got to give me some candy, then,' rejoined his young
interlocutor. 'I can't get any candy here- any American candy.
American candy's the best candy.'
'And are American little boys the best little boys?' asked
Winterbourne.
'I don't know. I'm an American boy,' said the child.
'I see you are one of the best!' laughed Winterbourne.
'Are you an American man?' pursued this vivacious infant. And
then, on Winterbourne's affirmative reply- 'American men are the
best,' he declared.
His companion thanked him for the compliment; and the child, who had
now got astride of his alpenstock, stood looking about him, while he
attacked a second lump of sugar. Winterbourne wondered if he himself
had been like this in his infancy, for he had been brought to Europe
at about this age.
'Here comes my sister!' cried the child, in a moment. 'She's an
American girl.'
Winterbourne looked along the path and saw a beautiful young lady
advancing. 'American girls are the best girls,' he said, cheerfully,
to his young companion.
'My sister ain't the best!' the child declared. 'She's always
blowing at me.'
'I imagine that is your fault, not hers,' said Winterbourne. The
young lady meanwhile had drawn near. She was dressed in white
muslin, with a hundred frills and flounces, and knots of pale-coloured
ribbon. She was bare-headed; but she balanced in her hand a large
parasol, with a deep border of embroidery; and she was strikingly,
admirably pretty. 'How pretty they are!' thought Winterbourne,
straightening himself in his seat, as if he were prepared to rise.
The young lady paused in front of his bench, near the parapet of the
garden, which overlooked the lake. The little boy had now converted
his alpenstock into a vaulting-pole, by the aid of which he was
springing about in the gravel, and kicking it up not a little.
'Randolph,' said the young lady, 'what are you doing?'
'I'm going up the Alps,' replied Randolph. 'This is the way!' And he
gave another little jump, scattering the pebbles about
Winterbourne's ears.
'That's the way they come down,' said Winterbourne.
'He's an American man!' cried Randolph, in his little hard voice.
The young lady gave no heed to this announcement, but looked
straight at her brother. 'Well, I guess you had better be quiet,'
she simply observed.
It seemed to Winterbourne that he had been in a manner presented. He
got up and stepped slowly towards the young girl, throwing away his
cigarette. 'This little boy and I have made acquaintance,' he said,
with great civility. In Geneva, as he had been perfectly aware, a
young man was not at liberty to speak to a young unmarried lady except
under certain rarely occurring conditions; but here, at Vevey, what
conditions could be better than these?- a pretty American girl
coming and standing in front of you in a garden. This pretty
American girl, however, on hearing Winterbourne's observation,
simply glanced at him; she then, turned her head and looked over the
parapet, at the lake and the opposite mountains. He wondered whether
he had gone too far; but he decided that he must advance farther
rather than retreat. While he was thinking of something else to say,
the young lady turned to the little boy again.
'I should like to know where you got that pole,' she said.
'I bought it!' responded Randolph.
'You don't mean to say you're going to take it to Italy!'
'Yes, I am going to take it to Italy!' the child declared.
The young girl glanced over the front of her dress, and smoothed out
a knot or two of ribbon. Then she rested her eyes upon the prospect
again. 'Well, I guess you had better leave it somewhere,' she said,
after a moment.
'Are you going to Italy?' Winterbourne inquired, in a tone of
great respect.
The young lady glanced at him again. 'Yes, sir,' she replied. And
she said nothing more.
'Are you- a- going over the Simplon?' Winterbourne pursued, a little
embarrassed.
'I don't know,' she said. 'I suppose it's some mountain. Randolph,
what mountain are we going over?'
'Going where?' the child demanded.
'To Italy,' Winterbourne explained.
'I don't know,' said Randolph. 'I don't want to go to Italy. I
want to go to America.'
'Oh, Italy is a beautiful place!' rejoined the young man.
'Can you get candy there?' Randolph loudly inquired.
'I hope not,' said his sister. 'I guess you have had enough candy,
and mother thinks so too.'
'I haven't had any for ever so long- for a hundred weeks!' cried the
boy, still jumping about.
The young lady inspected her flounces and smoothed her ribbons
again; and Winterbourne presently risked an observation upon the
beauty of the view. He was ceasing to be embarrassed, for he had begun
to perceive that she was not in the least embarrassed herself. There
had not been the slightest alteration in her charming complexion;
she was evidently neither offended nor fluttered. If she looked
another way when he spoke to her, and seemed not particularly to
hear him, this was simply her habit, her manner. Yet, as he talked a
little more, and pointed out some of the objects of interest in the
view, with which she appeared quite unacquainted, she gradually gave
him more of the benefit of her glance; and then he saw that this
glance was perfectly direct and unshrinking. It was not, however, what
would have been called an immodest glance, for the young girl's eyes
were singularly honest and fresh. They were wonderfully pretty eyes;
and, indeed, Winterbourne had not seen for a long time anything
prettier than his fair countrywoman's various features- her
complexion, her nose, her ears, her teeth. He had a great relish for
feminine beauty: he was addicted to observing and analysing it; and as
regards this young lady's face he made several observations. It was
not at all insipid, but it was not exactly expressive; and though it
was eminently delicate, Winterbourne mentally accused it- very
forgivingly- of a want of finish. He thought it very possible that
Master Randolph's sister was a coquette; he was sure she had a
spirit of her own; but in her bright, sweet, superficial little visage
there was no mockery, no irony. Before long it became obvious that she
was much disposed towards conversation. She told him that they were
going to Rome for the winter- she and her mother and Randolph. She
asked him if he was a 'real American'; she wouldn't have taken him for
one; he seemed more like a German- this was said after a little
hesitation, especially when he spoke. Winterbourne, laughing, answered
that he had met Germans who spoke like Americans; but that he had not,
so far as he remembered, met an American who spoke like a German. Then
he asked her if she would not be more comfortable in sitting upon
the bench which he had just quitted. She answered that she liked
standing up and walking about; but she presently sat down. She told
him she was from New York State- 'if you know where that is'.
Winterbourne learned more about her by catching hold of her small,
slippery brother and making him stand a few minutes by his side.
'Tell me your name, my boy,' he said.
'Randolph C. Miller,' said the boy, sharply. 'And I'll tell you
her name'; and he levelled his alpenstock at his sister.
'You had better wait till you are asked!' said this young lady,
calmly.
'I should like very much to know your name,' said Winterbourne.
'Her name is Daisy Miller!' cried the child. 'But that isn't her
real name; that isn't her name on her cards.'
'It's a pity you haven't got one of my cards!' said Miss Miller.
'Her real name is Annie P. Miller,' the boy went on.
'Ask him his name,' said his sister, indicating Winterbourne.
But on this point Randolph seemed perfectly indifferent; he
continued to supply information with regard to his own family. 'My
father's name is Ezra B. Miller,' he announced. 'My father ain't in
Europe; my father's in a better place than Europe.'
Winterbourne imagined for a moment that this was the manner in which
the child had been taught to intimate that Mr Miller had been
removed to the sphere of celestial rewards. But Randolph immediately
added, 'My father's in Schenectady. He's got a big business. My
father's rich, you bet.'
'Well!' ejaculated Miss Miller, lowering her parasol and looking
at the embroidered border. Winterbourne presently released the
child, who departed, dragging his alpenstock along the path. 'He
doesn't like Europe,' said the young girl. 'He wants to go back.'
'To Schenectady, you mean?'
'Yes; he wants to go right home. He hasn't got any boys here.
There is one boy here, but he always goes round with a teacher; they
won't let him play.'
'And your brother hasn't any teacher?' Winterbourne inquired.
'Mother thought of getting him one, to travel round with us. There
was a lady told her of a very good teacher; an American lady-
perhaps you know her- Mrs Sanders. I think she came from Boston. She
told her of this teacher, and we thought of getting him to travel
round with us. But Randolph said he didn't want a teacher travelling
round with us. He said he wouldn't have lessons when he was in the
cars. And we are in the cars about half the time. There was an English
lady we met in the cars- I think her name was Miss Featherstone;
perhaps you know her. She wanted to know why I didn't give Randolph
lessons- give him "instruction", she called it. I guess he could
give me more instruction than I could give him. He's very smart.'
'Yes,' said Winterbourne; 'he seems very smart.'
'Mother's going to get a teacher for him as soon as we get to Italy.
Can you get good teachers in Italy?'
'Very good, I should think,' said Winterbourne.
'Or else she's going to find some school. He ought to learn some
more. He's only nine. He's going to college.' And in this way Miss
Miller continued to converse upon the affairs of her family, and
upon other topics. She sat there with her extremely pretty hands,
ornamented with very brilliant rings, folded in her lap, and with
her pretty eyes now resting upon those of Winterbourne, now
wandering over the garden, the people who passed by, and the beautiful
view. She talked to Winterbourne as if she had known him a long
time. He found it very pleasant. It was many years since he had
heard a young girl talk so much. It might have been said of this
unknown young lady, who had come and sat down beside him upon a bench,
that she chattered. She was very quiet, she sat in a charming tranquil
attitude; but her lips and her eyes were constantly moving. She had
a soft, slender, agreeable voice, and her tone was decidedly sociable.
She gave Winterbourne a history of her movements and intentions, and
those of her mother and brother, in Europe, and enumerated, in
particular, the various hotels at which they had stopped. 'That
English lady in the cars,' she said- 'Miss Featherstone- asked me if
we didn't all live in hotels in America. I told her I had never been
in so many hotels in my life as since I came to Europe. I have never
seen so many- it's nothing but hotels.' But Miss Miller did not make
this remark with a querulous accent; she appeared to be in the best
humour with everything. She declared that the hotels were very good,
when once you got used to their ways, and that Europe was perfectly
sweet. She was not disappointed- not a bit. Perhaps it was because she
had heard so much about it before. She had ever so many intimate
friends that had been there ever so many times. And then she had had
ever so many dresses and things from Paris. Whenever she put on a
Paris dress she felt as if she were in Europe.
'It was a kind of wishing-cap,' said Winterbourne.
'Yes,' said Miss Miller, without examining this analogy; 'it
always made me wish I was here. But I needn't have done that for
dresses. I am sure they send all the pretty ones to America; you see
the most frightful things here. The only thing I don't like,' she
proceeded, 'is the society. There isn't any society; or, if there
is, I don't know where it keeps itself. Do you? I suppose there is
some society somewhere, but I haven't seen anything of it. I'm very
fond of society, and I have always had a great deal of it. I don't
mean only in Schenectady, but in New York. I used to go to New York
every winter. In New York I had lots of society. Last winter I had
seventeen dinners given me; and three of them were by gentlemen,'
added Daisy Miller. 'I have more friends in New York than in
Schenectady- more gentlemen friends, and more young lady friends too,'
she resumed in a moment. She paused again for an instant; she was
looking at Winterbourne with all her prettiness in her lively eyes and
in her light, slightly monotonous smile. 'I have always had,' she
said, 'a great deal of gentlemen's society.'
Poor Winterbourne was amused, perplexed, and decidedly charmed. He
had never yet heard a young girl express herself in just this fashion;
never, at least, save in cases where to say such things seemed a
kind of demonstrative evidence of a certain laxity of deportment.
And yet was he to accuse Miss Daisy Miller of actual or potential
inconduite, as they said at Geneva? He felt that he had lived at
Geneva so long that he had lost a good deal; he had become
dishabituated to the American tone. Never, indeed, since he had
grown old enough to appreciate things, had he encountered a young
American girl of so pronounced a type as this. Certainly she was
very charming; but how deucedly sociable! Was she simply a pretty girl
from New York State- were they all like that, the pretty girls who had
a good deal of gentlemen's society? Or was she also a designing, an
audacious, an unscrupulous young person? Winterbourne had lost his
instinct in this matter, and his reason could not help him. Miss Daisy
Miller looked extremely innocent. Some people had told him that, after
all, American girls were exceedingly innocent; and others had told him
that, after all, they were not. He was inclined to think Miss Daisy
Miller was a flirt- a pretty American flirt. He had never, as yet, had
any relations with young ladies of this category. He had known, here
in Europe, two or three women- persons older than Miss Daisy Miller,
and provided, for respectability's sake, with husbands- who were great
coquettes- dangerous, terrible women, with whom one's relations were
liable to take a serious turn. But this young girl was not a
coquette in that sense; she was very unsophisticated; she was only a
pretty American flirt. Winterbourne was almost grateful for having
found the formula that applied to Miss Daisy Miller. He leaned back in
his seat; he remarked to himself that she had the most charming nose
he had ever seen; he wondered what were the regular conditions and
limitations of one's intercourse with a pretty American flirt. It
presently became apparent that he was on the way to learn.
'Have you been to that old castle?' asked the young girl, pointing
with her parasol to the far-gleaming walls of the Chateau de Chillon.
'Yes, formerly, more than once,' said Winterbourne. 'You too, I
suppose, have seen it?'
'No; we haven't been there. I want to go there dreadfully. Of course
I mean to go there. I wouldn't go away from here without having seen
that old castle.'
'It's a very pretty excursion,' said Winterbourne, 'and very easy to
make. You can drive, you know, or you can go by the little steamer.'
'You can go in the cars,' said Miss Miller.
'Yes; you can go in the cars,' Winterbourne assented.
'Our courier says they take you right up to the castle,' the young
girl continued. 'We were going last week; but my mother gave out.
She suffers dreadfully from dyspepsia. She said she couldn't go.
Randolph wouldn't go either; he says he doesn't think much of old
castles. But I guess we'll go this week, if we can get Randolph.'
'Your brother is not interested in ancient monuments?'
Winterbourne inquired, smiling.
'He says he don't care much about old castles. He's only nine. He
wants to stay at the hotel. Mother's afraid to leave him alone, and
the courier won't stay with him; so we haven't been to many places.
But it will be too bad if we don't go up there.' And Miss Miller
pointed again at the Chateau de Chillon.
'I should think it might be arranged,' said Winterbourne.
'Couldn't you get someone to stay- for the afternoon- with Randolph?'
Miss Miller looked at him a moment; and then, very placidly- 'I wish
you would stay with him!' she said.
Winterbourne hesitated a moment. 'I would much rather go to
Chillon with you.'
'With me?' asked the young girl, with the same placidity.
She didn't rise, blushing, as a young girl at Geneva would have
done; and yet Winterbourne, conscious that he had been very bold,
thought it possible she was offended. 'With your mother,' he
answered very respectfully.
But it seemed that both his audacity and his respect were lost
upon Miss Daisy Miller. 'I guess my mother won't go, after all,' she
said. 'She don't like to ride round in the afternoon. But did you
really mean what you said just now; that you would like to go up
there?'
'Most earnestly,' Winterbourne declared.
'Then we may arrange it. If mother will stay with Randolph, I
guess Eugenio will.'
'Eugenio?' the young man inquired.
'Eugenio's our courier. He doesn't like to stay with Randolph;
he's the most fastidious man I ever saw. But he's a splendid
courier. I guess he'll stay at home with Randolph if mother does,
and then we can go to the castle.'
Winterbourne reflected for an instant as lucidly as possible- 'we'
could only mean Miss Daisy Miller and himself. This programme seemed
almost too agreeable for credence; he felt as if he ought to kiss
the young lady's hand. Possibly he would have done so- and quite
spoiled the project; but at this moment another person- presumably
Eugenio- appeared. A tall, handsome man, with superb whiskers, wearing
a velvet morning-coat and a brilliant watch-chain, approached Miss
Miller, looking sharply at her companion. 'Oh, Eugenio!' said Miss
Miller, with the friendliest accent.
Eugenio had looked at Winterbourne from head to foot, he now bowed
gravely to the young lady. 'I have the honour to inform mademoiselle
that luncheon is upon the table.'
Miss Miller slowly rose. 'See here, Eugenio,' she said. 'I'm going
to that old castle, anyway.'
'To the Chateau de Chillon, mademoiselle?' the courier inquired.
'Mademoiselle has made arrangements?' he added, in a tone which struck
Winterbourne as very impertinent.
Eugenio's tone apparently threw, even to Miss Miller's own
apprehension, a slightly ironical light upon the young girl's
situation. She turned to Winterbourne, blushing a little- a very
little. 'You won't back out?' she said.
'I shall not be happy till we go!' he protested.
'And you are staying in this hotel?' she went on. 'And you are
really an American?'
The courier stood looking at Winterbourne, offensively. The young
man, at least, thought his manner of looking an offence to Miss
Miller; it conveyed an imputation that she 'picked up'
acquaintances. 'I shall have the honour of presenting to you a
person who will tell you all about me,' he said smiling, and referring
to his aunt.
'Oh well, we'll go some day,' said Miss Miller. And she gave him a
smile and turned away. She put up her parasol and walked back to the
inn beside Eugenio.
Winterbourne stood looking after her; and as she moved away, drawing
her muslin furbelows over the gravel, said to himself that she had the
tournure of a princess.
2
-
He had, however, engaged to do more than proved feasible, in
promising to present his aunt, Mrs Costello, to Miss Daisy Miller.
As soon as the former lady had got better of her headache he waited
upon her in her apartment; and, after the proper inquiries in regard
to her health, he asked her if she had observed, in the hotel, an
American family- a mamma, a daughter, and a little boy.
'And a courier?' said Mrs Costello. 'Oh, yes, I have observed
them. Seen them- heard them- and kept out of their way.' Mrs
Costello was a widow with a fortune; a person of much distinction, who
frequently intimated that, if she were not so dreadfully liable to
sick-headaches, she would probably have left a deeper impress upon her
time. She had a long pale face, a high nose, and a great deal of
very striking white hair, which she wore in large puffs and rouleaux
over the top of her head. She had two sons married in New York, and
another who was now in Europe. This young man was amusing himself at
Homburg, and, though he was on his travels, was rarely perceived to
visit any particular city at the moment selected by his mother for her
own appearance there. Her nephew, who had come up to Vevey expressly
to see her, was therefore more attentive than those who, as she
said, were nearer to her. He had imbibed at Geneva the idea that one
must always be attentive to one's aunt. Mrs Costello had not seen
him for many years, and she was greatly pleased with him,
manifesting her approbation by initiating him into many of the secrets
of that social sway which, as she gave him to understand, she
exerted in the American capital. She admitted that she was very
exclusive; but, if he were acquainted with New York, he would see that
one had to be. And her picture of the minutely hierarchical
constitution of the society of that city, which she presented to him
in many different lights, was, to Winterbourne's imagination, almost
oppressively striking.
He immediately perceived, from her tone, that Miss Daisy Miller's
place in the social scale was low. 'I am afraid you don't approve of
them,' he said.
'They are very common,' Mrs Costello declared. 'They are the sort of
Americans that one does one's duty by not- not accepting.'
'Ah, you don't accept them?' said the young man.
'I can't, my dear Frederick. I would if I could, but I can't.'
'The young girl is very pretty,' said Winterbourne, in a moment.
'Of course she's pretty. But she is very common.'
'I see what you mean, of course,' said Winterbourne, after another
pause.
'She has that charming look that they all have,' his aunt resumed.
'I can't think where they pick it up; and she dresses in perfection-
no, you don't know how well she dresses. I can't think where they
get their taste.'
'But, my dear aunt, she is not, after all, a Comanche savage.'
'She is a young lady,' said Mrs Costello, 'who has an intimacy
with her mamma's courier.'
'An intimacy with the courier?' the young man demanded.
'Oh, the mother is just as bad! They treat the courier like a
familiar friend- like a gentleman. I shouldn't wonder if he dines with
them. Very likely they have never seen a man with such good manners,
such fine clothes, so like a gentleman. He probably corresponds to the
young lady's idea of a Count. He sits with them in the garden, in
the evening. I think he smokes.'
Winterbourne listened with interest to these disclosures; they
helped him to make up his mind about Miss Daisy. Evidently she was
rather wild. 'Well,' he said, 'I am not a courier, and yet she was
very charming to me.'
'You had better have said at first,' said Mrs Costello with dignity,
'that you had made her acquaintance.'
'We simply met in the garden, and we talked a bit.'
'Tout bonnement! And pray what did you say?'
'I said I should take the liberty of introducing her to my admirable
aunt.'
'I am much obliged to you.'
'It was to guarantee my respectability,' said Winterbourne.
'And pray who is to guarantee hers?'
'Ah, you are cruel!' said the young man. 'She's a very nice girl.'
'You don't say that as if you believed it,' Mrs Costello observed.
'She is completely uncultivated,' Winterbourne went on. 'But she
is wonderfully pretty, and, in short, she is very nice. To prove
that I believe it, I am going to take her to the Chateau de Chillon.'
'You two are going off there together? I should say it proved just
the contrary. How long had you known her, may I ask, when this
interesting project was formed? You haven't been twenty-four hours
in the house.'
'I had known her half an hour!' said Winterbourne, smiling.
'Dear me!' cried Mrs Costello. 'What a dreadful girl!'
Her nephew was silent for some moments. 'You really think, then,' he
began earnestly, and with a desire for trustworthy information- 'you
really think that-' But he paused again.
'Think what, sir,' said his aunt.
'That she is the sort of young lady who expects a man- sooner or
later- to carry her off?'
'I haven't the least idea what such young ladies expect a man to do.
But I really think that you had better not meddle with little American
girls that are uncultivated, as you call them. You have lived too long
out of the country. You will be sure to make some great mistake. You
are too innocent.'
'My dear aunt, I am not so innocent,' said Winterbourne, smiling and
curling his moustache.
'You are too guilty, then?'
Winterbourne continued to curl his moustache, meditatively. 'You
won't let the poor girl know you then?' he asked at last.
'Is it literally true that she is going to the Chateau de Chillon
with you?'
'I think that she fully intends it.'
'Then, my dear Frederick,' said Mrs Costello, 'I must decline the
honour of her acquaintance. I am an old woman, but I am not too old-
thank Heaven- to be shocked!'
'But don't they all do these things- the young girls in America?'
Winterbourne inquired.
Mrs Costello stared a moment. 'I should like to see my
grand-daughters do them!' she declared, grimly.
This seemed to throw some light upon the matter, for Winterbourne
remembered to have heard that his pretty cousins in New York were
'tremendous flirts'. If, therefore, Miss Daisy Miller exceeded the
liberal licence allowed to these young ladies, it was probable that
anything might be expected of her. Winterbourne was impatient to see
her again, and he was vexed with himself that, by instinct, he
should not appreciate her justly.
Though he was impatient to see her, he hardly knew what he should
say to her about his aunt's refusal to become acquainted with her; but
he discovered, promptly enough, that with Miss Daisy Miller there
was no great need of walking on tiptoe. He found her that evening in
the garden, wandering about in the warm starlight, like an indolent
sylph, and swinging to and fro the largest fan he had ever beheld.
It was ten o'clock. He had dined with his aunt, had been sitting
with her since dinner, and had just taken leave of her till the
morrow. Miss Daisy Miller seemed very glad to see him; she declared it
was the longest evening she had ever passed.
'Have you been all alone?' he asked.
'I have been walking round with mother. But mother gets tired
walking round,' she answered.
'Has she gone to bed?'
'No; she doesn't like to go to bed,' said the young girl. 'She
doesn't sleep- not three hours. She says she doesn't know how she
lives. She's dreadfully nervous. I guess she sleeps more than she
thinks. She's gone somewhere after Randolph; she wants to try to get
him to go to bed. He doesn't like to go to bed.'
'Let us hope she will persuade him,' observed Winterbourne.
'She will talk to him all she can; but he doesn't like her to talk
to him,' said Miss Daisy, opening her fan. 'She's going to try to
get Eugenio to talk to him. But he isn't afraid of Eugenio.
Eugenio's a splendid courier, but he can't make much impression on
Randolph! I don't believe he'll go to bed before eleven.' It
appeared that Randolph's vigil was in fact triumphantly prolonged, for
Winterbourne strolled about with the young girl for some time
without meeting her mother. 'I have been looking round for that lady
you want to introduce me to,' his companion resumed. 'She's your
aunt.' Then, on Winterbourne's admitting the fact, and expressing some
curiosity as to how she had learned it, she said she had heard all
about Mrs Costello from the chambermaid. She was very quiet and very
comme il faut; she wore white puffs; she spoke to no one, and she
never dined at the table d'hote. Every two days she had a headache. 'I
think that's a lovely description, headache and all!' said Miss Daisy,
chattering along in her thin, gay voice. 'I want to know her ever so
much. I know just what your aunt would be; I know I should like her.
She would be very exclusive. I like a lady to be exclusive; I'm
dying to be exclusive myself. Well, we are exclusive, mother and I. We
don't speak to everyone- or they don't speak to us. I suppose it's
about the same thing. Anyway, I shall be ever so glad to know your
aunt.'
Winterbourne was embarrassed. 'She would be most happy,' he said,
'but I am afraid those headaches will interfere.'
The young girl looked at him through the dusk. 'But I suppose she
doesn't have a headache every day,' she said, sympathetically.
Winterbourne was silent a moment. 'She tells me she does,' he
answered at last- not knowing what to say.
Miss Daisy Miller stopped and stood looking at him. Her prettiness
was still visible in the darkness; she was opening and closing her
enormous fan. 'She doesn't want to know me!' she said suddenly. 'Why
don't you say so? You needn't be afraid. I'm not afraid!' And she gave
a little laugh.
Winterbourne fancied there was a tremor in her voice; he was
touched, shocked, mortified by it. 'My dear young lady,' he protested,
'she knows no one. It's her wretched health.'
The young girl walked on a few steps, laughing still. 'You needn't
be afraid,' she repeated. 'Why should she want to know me?' Then she
paused again; she was close to the parapet of the garden, and in front
of her was the starlit lake. There was a vague sheen upon its surface,
and in the distance were dimly seen mountain forms. Daisy Miller
looked out upon the mysterious prospect, and then she gave another
little laugh. 'Gracious! she is exclusive!' she said. Winterbourne
wondered whether she was seriously wounded, and for a moment almost
wished that her sense of injury might be such as to make it becoming
in him to attempt to reassure and comfort her. He had a pleasant sense
that she would be very approachable for consolatory purposes. He
felt then, for the instant, quite ready to sacrifice his aunt,
conversationally; to admit that she was a proud, rude woman, and to
declare that they needn't mind her. But before he had time to commit
himself to this perilous mixture of gallantry and impiety, the young
lady, resuming her walk, gave an exclamation in quite another tone.
'Well; here's mother! I guess she hasn't got Randolph to go to bed.'
The figure of a lady appeared, at a distance, very indistinct in the
darkness, and advancing with a slow and wavering movement. Suddenly it
seemed to pause.
'Are you sure it is your mother? Can you distinguish her in this
thick dusk?' Winterbourne asked.
'Well!' cried Miss Daisy Miller, with a laugh, 'I guess I know my
own mother. And when she has got on my shawl, too! She is always
wearing my things.'
The lady in question, ceasing to advance, hovered vaguely about
the spot at which she had checked her steps.
'I am afraid your mother doesn't see you,' said Winterbourne. 'Or
perhaps,' he added- thinking, with Miss Miller, the joke
permissible- 'perhaps she feels guilty about your shawl.'
'Oh, it's a fearful old thing!' the young girl replied, serenely. 'I
told her she could wear it. She won't come here, because she sees
you.'
'Ah, then,' said Winterbourne, 'I had better leave you.'
'Oh, no; come on!' urged Miss Daisy Miller.
'I'm afraid your mother doesn't approve of my walking with you.'
Miss Miller gave him a serious glance. 'It isn't for me; it's for
you- that is, it's for her. Well; I don't know who it's for! But
mother doesn't like any of my gentlemen friends. She's right down
timid. She always makes a fuss if I introduce a gentleman. But I do
introduce them- almost always. If I didn't introduce my gentlemen
friends to mother,' the young girl added, in her little soft, flat
monotone, 'I shouldn't think I was natural.'
'To introduce me,' said Winterbourne, 'you must know my name.' And
he proceeded to pronounce it.
'Oh, dear; I can't say all that!' said his companion, with a
laugh. But by this time they had come up to Mrs Miller, who, as they
drew near, walked to the parapet of the garden and leaned upon it,
looking intently at the lake and turning her back upon them. 'Mother!'
said the young girl, in a tone of decision. Upon this the elder lady
turned round. 'Mr Winterbourne,' said Miss Daisy Miller, introducing
the young man very frankly and prettily. 'Common' she was, as Mrs
Costello had pronounced her; yet it was a wonder to Winterbourne that,
with her commonness, she had a singularly delicate grace.
Her mother was a small, spare, light person, with a wandering eye, a
very exiguous nose, and a large forehead, decorated with a certain
amount of thin, much-frizzled hair. Like her daughter, Mrs Miller
was dressed with extreme elegance; she had enormous diamonds in her
ears. So far as Winterbourne could observe, she gave him no
greeting- she certainly was not looking at him. Daisy was near her,
pulling her shawl straight. 'What are you doing, poking round here?'
this young lady inquired; but by no means with that harshness of
accent which her choice of words may imply.
'I don't know,' said her mother, turning towards the lake again.
'I shouldn't think you'd want that shawl!' Daisy exclaimed.
'Well- I do!' her mother answered, with a little laugh.
'Did you get Randolph to go to bed?' asked the young girl.
'No; I couldn't induce him,' said Mrs Miller, very gently. 'He wants
to talk to the waiter. He likes to talk to that waiter.'
'I was telling Mr Winterbourne,' the young girl went on; and to
the young man's ear her tone might have indicated that she had been
uttering his name all her life.
'Oh yes!' said Winterbourne; 'I have the pleasure of knowing your
son.'
Randolph's mamma was silent; she turned her attention to the lake.
But at last she spoke. 'Well, I don't see how he lives!'
'Anyhow, it isn't so bad as it was at Dover,' said Daisy Miller.
'And what occurred at Dover?' Winterbourne asked.
'He wouldn't go to bed at all. I guess he sat up all night- in the
public parlour. He wasn't in bed at twelve o'clock: I know that.'
'It was half past twelve,' declared Mrs Miller, with mild emphasis.
'Does he sleep much during the day?' Winterbourne demanded.
'I guess he doesn't sleep much,' Daisy rejoined.
'I wish he would!' said her mother. 'It seems as if he couldn't.'
'I think he's real tiresome,' Daisy pursued.
Then, for some moments, there was silence. 'Well, Daisy Miller,'
said the elder lady, presently, 'I shouldn't think you'd want to
talk against your own brother!'
'Well, he is tiresome, mother,' said Daisy, quite without the
asperity of a retort.
'He's only nine,' urged Mrs Miller.
'Well, he wouldn't go to that castle,' said the young girl. 'I'm
going there with Mr Winterbourne.'
To this announcement, very placidly made, Daisy's mamma offered no
response. Winterbourne took for granted that she deeply disapproved of
the projected excursion; but he said to himself that she was a simple,
easily managed person, and that a few deferential protestations
would take the edge from her displeasure. 'Yes,' he began; 'your
daughter has kindly allowed me the honour of being her guide.'
Mrs Miller's wandering eyes attached themselves, with a sort of
appealing air, to Daisy, who, however, strolled a few steps farther,
gently humming to herself. 'I presume you will go in the cars,' said
her mother.
'Yes; or in the boat,' said Winterbourne.
'Well, of course, I don't know,' Mrs Miller rejoined. 'I have
never been to that castle.'
'It is a pity you shouldn't go,' said Winterbourne, beginning to
feel reassured as to her opposition. And yet he was quite prepared
to find that, as a matter of course, she meant to accompany her
daughter.
'We've been thinking ever so much about going,' she pursued; 'but it
seems as if we couldn't. Of course Daisy- she wants to go round. But
there's a lady here- I don't know her name- she says she shouldn't
think we'd want to go to see castles here; she should think we'd
want to wait till we got to Italy. It seems as if there would be so
many there,' continued Mrs Miller, with an air of increasing
confidence. 'Of course, we only want to see the principal ones. We
visited several in England,' she presently added.
'Ah yes! in England there are beautiful castles,' said Winterbourne.
'But Chillon, here, is very well worth seeing.'
'Well, if Daisy feels up to it-,' said Mrs Miller, in a tone
impregnated with a sense of the magnitude of the enterprise. 'It seems
as if there was nothing she wouldn't undertake.'
'Oh, I think she'll enjoy it!' Winterbourne declared. And he desired
more and more to make it a certainty that he was to have the privilege
of a tete-a-tete with the young lady, who was still strolling along in
front of them, softly vocalizing. 'You are not disposed, madam,' he
inquired, 'to undertake it yourself?'
Daisy's mother looked at him, an instant, askance, and then walked
forward in silence. Then- 'I guess she had better go along,' she said,
simply.
Winterbourne observed to himself that this was a very different type
of maternity from that of the vigilant matrons who massed themselves
in the forefront of social intercourse in the dark old city at the
other end of the lake. But his meditations were interrupted by hearing
his name very distinctly pronounced by Mrs Miller's unprotected
daughter.
'Mr Winterbourne!' murmured Daisy.
'Mademoiselle!' said the young man.
'Don't you want to take me out in a boat?'
'At present?' he asked.
'Of course!' said Daisy.
'Well, Annie Miller!' exclaimed her mother.
'I beg you, madam, to let her go,' said Winterbourne, ardently;
for he had never yet enjoyed the sensation of guiding through the
summer starlight a skiff freighted with a fresh and beautiful young
girl.
'I shouldn't think she'd want to,' said her mother. 'I should
think she'd rather go indoors.'
'I'm sure Mr Winterbourne wants to take me,' Daisy declared. 'He's
so awfully devoted!'
'I will row you over to Chillon, in the starlight.'
'I don't believe it!' said Daisy.
'Well!' ejaculated the elder lady again.
'You haven't spoken to me for half an hour,' her daughter went on.
'I have been having some very pleasant conversation with your
mother,' said Winterbourne.
'Well; I want you to take me out in a boat!' Daisy repeated. They
had all stopped, and she turned round and was looking at Winterbourne.
Her face wore a charming smile, her pretty eyes were gleaming, she was
swinging her great fan about. No; it's impossible to be prettier
than that, thought Winterbourne.
'There are half a dozen boats moored at that landing-place,' he
said, pointing to certain steps which descended from the garden to the
lake. 'If you will do me the honour to accept my arm, we will go and
select one of them.'
Daisy stood there smiling; she threw back her head and gave a little
light laugh. 'I like a gentleman to be formal!' she declared.
'I assure you it's a formal offer.'
'I was bound I would make you say something,' Daisy went on.
'You see it's not very difficult,' said Winterbourne. 'But I am
afraid you are chaffing me.'
'I think not, sir,' remarked Mrs Miller, very gently.
'Do, then, let me give you a row,' he said to the young girl.
'It's quite lovely, the way you say that!' cried Daisy.
'It will be still more lovely to do it.'
'Yes, it would be lovely!' said Daisy. But she made no movement to
accompany him; she only stood there laughing.
'I should think you had better find out what time it is,' interposed
her mother.
'It is eleven o'clock, madam,' said a voice, with a foreign
accent, out of the neighbouring darkness; and Winterbourne, turning,
perceived the florid personage who was in attendance upon the two
ladies. He had apparently just approached.
'Oh, Eugenio,' said Daisy, 'I am going out in a boat!'
Eugenio bowed. 'At eleven o'clock, mademoiselle?'
'I am going with Mr Winterbourne. This very minute.'
'Do tell her she can't,' said Mrs Miller to the courier.
'I think you had better not go out in a boat, mademoiselle,' Eugenio
declared.
Winterbourne wished to Heaven this pretty girl were not so
familiar with her courier; but he said nothing.
'I suppose you don't think it's proper!' Daisy exclaimed, 'Eugenio
doesn't think anything's proper.'
'I am at your service,' said Winterbourne.
'Does mademoiselle propose to go alone?' asked Eugenio of Mrs
Miller.
'Oh, no; with this gentleman!' answered Daisy's mamma.
The courier looked for a moment at Winterbourne- the latter
thought he was smiling- and then, solemnly, with a bow, 'As
mademoiselle pleases!' he said.
'Oh, I hoped you would make a fuss!' said Daisy. 'I don't care to go
now.'
'I myself shall make a fuss if you don't go,' said Winterbourne.
'That's all I want- a little fuss!' And the young girl began to
laugh again.
'Mr Randolph has gone to bed!' the courier announced, frigidly.
'Oh, Daisy; now we can go!' said Mrs Miller.
Daisy turned away from Winterbourne, looking at him, smiling and
fanning herself. 'Good night,' she said; 'I hope you are disappointed,
or disgusted, or something!'
He looked at her, taking the hand she offered him. 'I am puzzled,'
he answered.
'Well; I hope it won't keep you awake!' she said, very smartly; and,
under the escort of the privileged Eugenio, the two ladies passed
towards the house.
Winterbourne stood looking after them; he was indeed puzzled. He
lingered beside the lake for a quarter of an hour, turning over the
mystery of the young girl's sudden familiarities and caprices. But the
only very definite conclusion he came to was that he should enjoy
deucedly 'going off' with her somewhere.
Two days afterwards he went off with her to the Castle of Chillon.
He waited for her in the large hall of the hotel, where the
couriers, the servants, the foreign tourists were lounging about and
staring. It was not the place he would have chosen, but she had
appointed it. She came tripping downstairs, buttoning her long gloves,
squeezing her folded parasol against her pretty figure, dressed in the
perfection of a soberly elegant travelling-costume. Winterbourne was a
man of imagination and, as our ancestors used to say, of
sensibility; as he looked at her dress and, on the great staircase,
her little rapid, confiding step, he felt as if there were something
romantic going forward. He could have believed he was going to elope
with her. He passed out with her among all the idle people that were
assembled there; they were all looking at her very hard; she had begun
to chatter as soon as she joined him. Winterbourne's preference had
been that they should be conveyed to Chillon in a carriage; but she
expressed a lively wish to go in the little steamer; she declared that
she had a passion for steamboats. There was always such a lovely
breeze upon the water, and you saw such lots of people. The sail was
not long, but Winterbourne's companion found time to say a great
many things. To the young man himself their little excursion was so
much of an escapade- an adventure- that, even allowing for her
habitual sense of freedom, he had some expectation of seeing her
regard it in the same way. But it must be confessed that, in this
particular, he was disappointed. Daisy Miller was extremely
animated, she was in charming spirits; but she was apparently not at
all excited; she was not fluttered; she avoided neither his eyes nor
those of anyone else; she blushed neither when she looked at him nor
when she saw that people were looking at her. People continued to look
at her a great deal, and Winterbourne took much satisfaction in his
pretty companion's distinguished air. He had been a little afraid that
she would talk loud, laugh overmuch, and even, perhaps, desire to move
about the boat a good deal. But he quite forgot his fears; he sat
smiling, with his eyes upon her face, while without moving from her
place, she delivered herself of a great number of original
reflections. It was the most charming garrulity he had ever heard.
He had assented to the idea that she was 'common'; but was she so,
after all, or was he simply getting used to her commonness? Her
conversation was chiefly of what metaphysicians term the objective
cast; but every now and then it took a subjective turn.
'What on earth are you so grave about?' she suddenly demanded,
fixing her agreeable eyes upon Winterbourne's.
'Am I grave?' he asked. 'I had an idea I was grinning from ear to
ear.'
'You look as if you were taking me to a funeral. If that's a grin,
your ears are very near together.'
'Should you like me to dance a hornpipe on the deck?'
'Pray do, and I'll carry round your hat. It will pay the expenses of
our journey.'
'I never was better pleased in my life,' murmured Winterbourne.
She looked at him a moment, and then burst into a little laugh. 'I
like to make you say those things! You're a queer mixture!'
In the castle, after they had landed, the subjective element
decidedly prevailed. Daisy tripped about the vaulted chambers, rustled
her skirts in the corkscrew staircases, flirted back with a pretty
little cry and a shudder from the edge of the oubliettes, and turned a
singularly well-shaped ear to everything that Winterbourne told her
about the place. But he saw that she cared very little for feudal
antiquities, and that the dusky traditions of Chillon made but a
slight impression upon her. They had the good fortune to have been
able to walk about without other companionship than that of the
custodian; and Winterbourne arranged with this functionary that they
should not be hurried- that they should linger and pause wherever they
chose. The custodian interpreted the bargain generously- Winterbourne,
on his side, had been generous- and ended by leaving them quite to
themselves. Miss Miller's observations were not remarkable for logical
consistency; for anything she wanted to say she was sure to find a
pretext. She found a great many pretexts in the rugged embrasures of
Chillon for asking Winterbourne sudden questions about himself- his
family, his previous history, his tastes, his habits, his
intentions- and for supplying information upon corresponding points in
her own personality. Of her own tastes, habits, and intentions Miss
Miller was prepared to give the most definite, and indeed the most
favourable, account.
'Well; I hope you know enough!' she said to her companion, after
he had told her the history of the unhappy Bonnivard. 'I never saw a
man that knew so much!' The history of Bonnivard had evidently, as
they say, gone into one ear and out of the other. But Daisy went on to
say that she wished Winterbourne would travel with them and 'go round'
with them; they might know something, in that case. 'Don't you want
to, come and teach Randolph?' she asked. Winterbourne said that
nothing could possibly please him so much; but that he had
unfortunately other occupations. 'Other occupations? I don't believe
it!' said Miss Daisy. 'What do you mean? You are not in business.' The
young man admitted that he was not in business; but he had engagements
which, even within a day or two, would force him to go back to Geneva.
'Oh, bother!' she said, 'I don't believe it!' and she began to talk
about something else. But a few moments later, when he was pointing
out to her the pretty design of an antique fireplace, she broke out
irrelevantly, 'You don't mean to say you are going back to Geneva?'
'It is a melancholy fact that I shall have to return to Geneva
tomorrow.'
'Well, Mr Winterbourne,' said Daisy; 'I think you're horrid!'
'Oh, don't say such dreadful things!' said Winterbourne, 'just at
the last.'
'The last!' cried the young girl; 'I call it the first. I have
half a mind to leave you here and go straight back to the hotel
alone.' And for the next ten minutes she did nothing but call him
horrid. Poor Winterbourne was fairly bewildered; no young lady had
as yet done him the honour to be so agitated by the announcement of
his movements. His companion, after this, ceased to pay any
attention to the curiosities of Chillon or the beauties of the lake;
she opened fire upon the mysterious charmer in Geneva, whom she
appeared to have instantly taken it for granted that he was hurrying
back to see. How did Miss Daisy Miller know that there was a charmer
in Geneva? Winterbourne, who denied the existence of such a person,
was quite unable to discover; and he was divided between amazement
at the rapidity of her induction and amusement at the frankness of her
persiflage. She seemed to him, in all this, an extraordinary mixture
of innocence and crudity. 'Does she never allow you more than three
days at a time?' asked Daisy, ironically. 'Doesn't she give you a
vacation in summer? There's no one so hard worked but they can get
leave to go off somewhere at this season. I suppose, if you stay
another day, she'll come after you in the boat. Do wait over till
Friday, and I will go down to the landing to see her arrive!'
Winterbourne began to think he had been wrong to feel disappointed
in the temper in which the young lady had embarked. If he had missed
the personal accent, the personal accent was now making its
appearance. It sounded very distinctly, at last, in her telling him
she would stop 'teasing' him if he would promise her solemnly to
come down to Rome in the winter.
'That's not a difficult promise to make,' said Winterbourne. 'My
aunt has taken an apartment in Rome for the winter, and has already
asked me to come and see her.'
'I don't want you to come for your aunt,' said Daisy; 'I want you to
come for me.' And this was the only allusion that the young man was
ever to hear her make to his invidious kinswoman. He declared that, at
any rate, he would certainly come. After this Daisy stopped teasing.
Winterbourne took a carriage, and they drove back to Vevey in the
dusk; the young girl was very quiet.
In the evening Winterbourne mentioned to Mrs Costello that he had
spent the afternoon at Chillon, with Miss Daisy Miller.
'The Americans- of the courier?' asked this lady.
'Ah, happily,' said Winterbourne, 'the courier stayed at home.'
'She went with you all alone?'
'All alone.'
Mrs Costello sniffed a little at her smelling-bottle. 'And that,'
she exclaimed, 'is the young person you wanted me to know!'
3
-
Winterbourne, who had returned to Geneva the day after his excursion
to Chillon, went to Rome towards 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 certainly think I may 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
moustache.'
'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 moustaches 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 worst!'
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 anyone 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
observed; '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.'
'Motherr,' 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 favour- 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 want 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. 'Good-bye,
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 honour 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 knew 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 the 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,' said 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 button-hole.
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 along with one of them on each side of her; Mr Giovanelli,
who spoke English very cleverly- Winterbourne afterwards learned
that he had practised 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. Damn 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 very skilful.
'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 interlocutrix in the
carriage and had gone her way with her own 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
afterwards told him. 'Should you prefer being thought a very
reckless girl?' she demanded.
'Gracious me!' 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 coloured; 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. Good-bye; 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 favour 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 endeavoured 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 humour 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 to 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 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 which
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, towards whom Mrs Walker gave a toss of her head. At the same
moment these persons rose and walked towards 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 towards 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-dusters 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 their heads were hidden from
Winterbourne. This young man lingered a moment, then he began to walk.
But he walked- not towards the couple with the parasol; towards the
residence of his aunt, Mrs Costello.
4
-
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 favour us with her society?'
demanded Mrs Walker, impressively.
'Well, Daisy's all dressed,' said Mrs Miller, with that accent of
the dispassionate, if not the philosophic, historian with which she
always recorded the current incidents of her daughter's career. 'She's
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 practise 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 everyone 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 moustaches 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 afterwards
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 would 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 decorative 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 offences. '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. 'Goodnight, 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 polished 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 behaviour 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 humour. 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 t |
