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 have 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 mustache.
"You are guilty too, then!"
Winterbourne continued to curl his mustache 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 honor 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 granddaughters 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 margin 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.
