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!”

PART II

Winterbourne, who had returned to Geneva the day after his excursion to Chillon, went to Rome toward the end of January.  His aunt had been established there for several weeks, and he had received a couple of letters from her.  “Those people you were so devoted to last summer at Vevey have turned up here, courier and all,” she wrote.  “They seem to have made several acquaintances, but the courier continues to be the most intime.  The young lady, however, is also very intimate with some third-rate Italians, with whom she rackets about in a way that makes much talk.  Bring me that pretty novel of Cherbuliez’s—­Paule Mere—­ and don’t come later than the 23rd.”

In the natural course of events, Winterbourne, on arriving in Rome, would presently have ascertained Mrs. Miller’s address at the American banker’s and have gone to pay his compliments to Miss Daisy.  “After what happened at Vevey, I think I may certainly call upon them,” he said to Mrs. Costello.

“If, after what happens—­at Vevey and everywhere—­you desire to keep up the acquaintance, you are very welcome.  Of course a man may know everyone.  Men are welcome to the privilege!”

“Pray what is it that happens—­here, for instance?” Winterbourne demanded.