no one so hard worked but they can get leave to go
off somewhere at this season. I suppose, if you
stay another day, she’ll come after you in the
boat. Do wait over till Friday, and I will go
down to the landing to see her arrive!” Winterbourne
began to think he had been wrong to feel disappointed
in the temper in which the young lady had embarked.
If he had missed the personal accent, the personal
accent was now making its appearance. It sounded
very distinctly, at last, in her telling him she would
stop “teasing” him if he would promise
her solemnly to come down to Rome in the winter.
“That’s not a difficult promise to make,”
said Winterbourne. “My aunt has taken an
apartment in Rome for the winter and has already asked
me to come and see her.”
“I don’t want you to come for your aunt,”
said Daisy; “I want you to come for me.”
And this was the only allusion that the young man
was ever to hear her make to his invidious kinswoman.
He declared that, at any rate, he would certainly come.
After this Daisy stopped teasing. Winterbourne
took a carriage, and they drove back to Vevey in the
dusk; the young girl was very quiet.
In the evening Winterbourne mentioned to Mrs. Costello
that he had spent the afternoon at Chillon with Miss
Daisy Miller.
“The Americans—of the courier?”
asked this lady.
“Ah, happily,” said Winterbourne, “the
courier stayed at home.”
“She went with you all alone?”
“All alone.”
Mrs. Costello sniffed a little at her smelling bottle.
“And that,” she exclaimed, “is the
young person whom you wanted me to know!”
Winterbourne, who had returned to Geneva the day after
his excursion to Chillon, went to Rome toward the
end of January. His aunt had been established
there for several weeks, and he had received a couple
of letters from her. “Those people you
were so devoted to last summer at Vevey have turned
up here, courier and all,” she wrote. “They
seem to have made several acquaintances, but the courier
continues to be the most intime. The young lady,
however, is also very intimate with some third-rate
Italians, with whom she rackets about in a way that
makes much talk. Bring me that pretty novel of
Cherbuliez’s—Paule Mere—
and don’t come later than the 23rd.”
In the natural course of events, Winterbourne, on
arriving in Rome, would presently have ascertained
Mrs. Miller’s address at the American banker’s
and have gone to pay his compliments to Miss Daisy.
“After what happened at Vevey, I think I may
certainly call upon them,” he said to Mrs. Costello.
“If, after what happens—at Vevey
and everywhere—you desire to keep up the
acquaintance, you are very welcome. Of course
a man may know everyone. Men are welcome to the
privilege!”
“Pray what is it that happens—here,
for instance?” Winterbourne demanded.
