第19章
I should want to write to Mr. Miller about it--shouldn't you?"Winterbourne replied that he certainly should; and the state of mind of Daisy's mamma struck him as so unprecedented in the annals of parental vigilance that he gave up as utterly irrelevant the attempt to place her upon her guard.
After this Daisy was never at home, and Winterbourne ceased to meet her at the houses of their common acquaintances, because, as he perceived, these shrewd people had quite made up their minds that she was going too far.
They ceased to invite her; and they intimated that they desired to express to observant Europeans the great truth that, though Miss Daisy Miller was a young American lady, her behavior was not representative--was regarded by her compatriots as abnormal. Winterbourne wondered how she felt about all the cold shoulders that were turned toward her, and sometimes it annoyed him to suspect that she did not feel at all.
He said to himself that she was too light and childish, too uncultivated and unreasoning, too provincial, to have reflected upon her ostracism, or even to have perceived it. Then at other moments he believed that she carried about in her elegant and irresponsible little organism a defiant, passionate, perfectly observant consciousness of the impression she produced.
He asked himself whether Daisy's defiance came from the consciousness of innocence, or from her being, essentially, a young person of the reckless class. It must be admitted that holding one's self to a belief in Daisy's "innocence" came to seem to Winterbourne more and more a matter of fine-spun gallantry. As I have already had occasion to relate, he was angry at finding himself reduced to chopping logic about this young lady;he was vexed at his want of instinctive certitude as to how far her eccentricities were generic, national, and how far they were personal.
From either view of them he had somehow missed her, and now it was too late.
She was "carried away" by Mr. Giovanelli.
A few days after his brief interview with her mother, he encountered her in that beautiful abode of flowering desolation known as the Palace of the Caesars. The early Roman spring had filled the air with bloom and perfume, and the rugged surface of the Palatine was muffled with tender verdure. Daisy was strolling along the top of one of those great mounds of ruin that are embanked with mossy marble and paved with monumental inscriptions.
It seemed to him that Rome had never been so lovely as just then.
He stood, looking off at the enchanting harmony of line and color that remotely encircles the city, inhaling the softly humid odors, and feeling the freshness of the year and the antiquity of the place reaffirm themselves in mysterious interfusion.
It seemed to him also that Daisy had never looked so pretty, but this had been an observation of his whenever he met her.
Giovanelli was at her side, and Giovanelli, too, wore an aspect of even unwonted brilliancy.
"Well," said Daisy, "I should think you would be lonesome!""Lonesome?" asked Winterbourne.
"You are always going round by yourself. Can't you get anyone to walk with you?""I am not so fortunate," said Winterbourne, "as your companion."Giovanelli, from the first, had treated Winterbourne with distinguished politeness. He listened with a deferential air to his remarks; he laughed punctiliously at his pleasantries;he seemed disposed to testify to his belief that Winterbourne was a superior young man. He carried himself in no degree like a jealous wooer; he had obviously a great deal of tact;he had no objection to your expecting a little humility of him.
It even seemed to Winterbourne at times that Giovanelli would find a certain mental relief in being able to have a private understanding with him--to say to him, as an intelligent man, that, bless you, HE knew how extraordinary was this young lady, and didn't flatter himself with delusive--or at least TOO delusive--hopes of matrimony and dollars.
On this occasion he strolled away from his companion to pluck a sprig of almond blossom, which he carefully arranged in his buttonhole.
"I know why you say that," said Daisy, watching Giovanelli.
"Because you think I go round too much with HIM."And she nodded at her attendant.
"Every one thinks so--if you care to know," said Winterbourne.
"Of course I care to know!" Daisy exclaimed seriously.
"But I don't believe it. They are only pretending to be shocked.
They don't really care a straw what I do. Besides, I don't go round so much.""I think you will find they do care. They will show it disagreeably."Daisy looked at him a moment. "How disagreeably?""Haven't you noticed anything?" Winterbourne asked.
"I have noticed you. But I noticed you were as stiff as an umbrella the first time I saw you.""You will find I am not so stiff as several others,"said Winterbourne, smiling.
"How shall I find it?"
"By going to see the others."
"What will they do to me?"
"They will give you the cold shoulder. Do you know what that means?"Daisy was looking at him intently; she began to color.
"Do you mean as Mrs. Walker did the other night?""Exactly!" said Winterbourne.
She looked away at Giovanelli, who was decorating himself with his almond blossom. Then looking back at Winterbourne, "I shouldn't think you would let people be so unkind!" she said.
"How can I help it?" he asked.
"I should think you would say something."
"I do say something"; and he paused a moment. "I say that your mother tells me that she believes you are engaged.""Well, she does," said Daisy very simply.
Winterbourne began to laugh. "And does Randolph believe it?" he asked.
"I guess Randolph doesn't believe anything," said Daisy.
Randolph's skepticism excited Winterbourne to further hilarity, and he observed that Giovanelli was coming back to them.
Daisy, observing it too, addressed herself again to her countryman.
"Since you have mentioned it," she said, "I AM engaged."* * * Winterbourne looked at her; he had stopped laughing.