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
mysteriousprospect 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 to 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 toward 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
parlor. 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
dis
approved 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 honor
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 alone,"
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 had 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 honor 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
neighboring 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.