 6 But she was evidently very much interested in Giovanelli. She looked at him whenever he spoke. She was perpetually telling him to do this and to do that. She was constantly chaffing and abusing him. She appeared completely to have forgotten that Winterborne had said anything to displease her at Mrs. Walker's little party. On one Sunday afternoon, having gone to St. Peter's with his aunt, Winterborne perceived Daisy strolling about the great church in company with the inevitable Giovanelli. Suddenly he pointed out the young girl and her cavalier to Mrs. Castello. This lady looked at them a moment through her eyeglass, and then she said, �That's what makes you so pensive in these days, eh?� � �I had not the least idea I was pensive,� said the young man. �You are very much preoccupied. You are thinking of something. And what is it,� he asked, �that you accuse me of thinking of?� �Of that young lady's Miss Baker's or Miss Chandler's?� �What's her name? Miss Miller's Intrigue with that little barber's block?� �Do you call it an intrigue?� Winterborne asked. �An affair that goes on with such peculiar publicity?� �That's their folly,� said Mrs. Castello. �It's not their merit.� �No,� rejoined Winterborne, with something of that pensiveness to which his aunt eluded. �I don't believe that there is anything to be called an intrigue.� �I have heard a dozen people speak of it!� they shazed she was quite carried away by him. �They are certainly very intimate,� said Winterborne. Mrs. Castello inspected the young couple again with her optical instrument. �He is very handsome. One easily sees how it is. She thinks him the most elegant man in the world, the finest gentleman. She has never seen anything like him. He is better even than the courier. It was the courier probably who introduced him, and if he succeeds in marrying the young lady, the courier will come in for a magnificent commission.� �I don't believe she thinks of marrying him,� said Winterborne, �and I don't believe he hopes to marry her. You may be very sure she thinks of something. She goes on from day to day, from hour to hour, as they did in the Golden Age. I can imagine nothing more vulgar. And at the same time,� added Mrs. Castello, �depend upon it that she may tell you any moment she is engaged.� �I think that is more than Joe Vanelli expects,� said Winterborne. �Who is Joe Vanelli?� The little Italian. I have asked questions about him and learned something. He is apparently a perfectly respectable little man. I believe he is, in a small way, a Cavalieri avocado. But he doesn't move in what are called the first circles. I think it is really not absolutely impossible that the courier introduced him. He is evidently immensely charmed with Miss Miller. If she thinks him the finest gentleman in the world, he on his side has never found himself in personal contact with such splendor, such opulence, such expansiveness as this young lady's. And then she must seem to him wonderfully pretty and interesting. I rather doubt that he dreams of marrying her. That must appear to him too impossible a piece of luck. He has nothing but his handsome face to offer, and there is a substantial Mr. Miller in that mysterious land of dollars. Joe Vanelli knows that he hasn't a title to offer. If only he were a count or a marqueser. He must wonder at his luck the way they have taken him up. He accounts for it by his handsome face, and thinks Miss Miller, a young lady, pursues passifant easy, said Mrs. Castello. It is very true, winter-born pursued, that Daisy and her mama have not yet risen to that stage of, what shall I call it, of culture at which the idea of catching a count or a marqueser begins. I believe that they are intellectually incapable of that conception. Ah! but the avocado can't believe it, said Mrs. Castello. Of the observation excited by Daisy's intrigue, winter-born gathered that day at St. Peter's sufficient evidence. A dozen of the American colonists in Rome came to talk with Mrs. Castello, who sat on a little portable stool at the base of one of the great pilasters. The Vesper service was going forward in splendid chants and organ tones in the adjacent choir, and meanwhile, between Mrs. Castello and her friends, there was a great deal said about poor little Miss Miller's going really TOO FAR. Winter-born was not pleased with what he heard, but when, coming out upon the great steps of the church, he saw Daisy, who had emerged before him, get into an open cab with her accomplice, and roll away through the cynical streets of Rome, he could not deny to himself that she was going very far indeed. He felt very sorry for her, not exactly that he believed that she had completely lost her head, but because it was painful to hear so much that it was pretty, and undefended, and natural, assigned to a vulgar place among the categories of disorder. He made an attempt after this to give a hint to Mrs. Miller. He met one day in the course, though, a friend, a tourist like himself, who had just come out of the Doria Palace, where he had been walking through the beautiful gallery. His friend talked for a moment about the superb portrait of Innocent the Tenth by Velasquez, which hangs in one of the cabinets of the palace, and then said, in the same cabinet, by the way, I had the pleasure of contemplating a picture of a different kind, that pretty American girl whom you pointed out to me last week. In answer to Winterborn's inquiries, his friend narrated that the pretty American girl, prettier than ever, was seated with a companion in the secluded nook in which the great people portrait was enshrined. Who was her companion? asked Winterborn. A little Italian with a bouquet in his buttonhole. The girl is delightfully pretty, but I thought I understood from you the other day that she was a young lady du milieu monde. So she is, answered Winterborn, and having assured himself that his informant had seen Daisy and her companion but five minutes before, he jumped into a cab and went to call on Mrs. Miller. She was at home, but she apologized to him for receiving him in Daisy's absent. She's gone out somewhere with Mr. Joe Vanellie, said Mrs. Miller. She's always going round with Mr. Joe Vanellie. I have noticed that they are very intimate, Winterborn observed. Oh, it seems as if they couldn't live without each other, said Mrs. Miller. Well, he's a real gentleman anyhow. I keep telling Daisy she's engaged. And what does Daisy say? Oh, she says she isn't engaged. But she might as well be. This impartial parent resumed. She goes on as if she was. But I've made Mr. Joe Vanellie promise to tell me if she doesn't. I should want to write to Mr. Miller about it. Should do. Winterborn 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 Winterborn 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. Winterborn 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 oneself to a belief in Daisy's innocence came to seem to Winterborn 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 colour that remotely encircles the city, inhaling the softly humid odours, and feeling the freshness of the gear 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 unwanted brilliancy. Well said Daisy, I should think you would be lonesome. Lonesome, asked Winterborne. You were always going round by yourself. Can't you get anyone to walk with you? I am not so fortunate, said Winterborne, as your companion. Giovanelli, from the first, had treated Winterborne with distinguished politeness. He listened with the deferential air to his remarks. He laughed punctiliously at his pleasantries. He seemed disposed to testify to his beliefs that Winterborne 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 Winterborne 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. Everyone thinks so. If you care to know, said Winterborne. 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? Winterborne asked. I have noticed you. But I noticed you were stiff as an umbrella the first time I saw you. You will find I am not so stiff as several others, said Winterborne, 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 Winterborne. She looked away at Joe Vanelli, who was decorating himself with his almond blossom. Then looking back at Winterborne, I shouldn't think he would let people be so unkind, she said. How can I help it? he asked. I should think he would say something. I do say something. And he paused a moment. I say that your mother tells me she believes you are engaged. Well, she does, said Daisy, very simply. Winterborne began to laugh. And does Randolph believe it, he asked. I guess Randolph doesn't believe anything, said Daisy. Randolph's skepticism excited Winterborne to further hilarity, and he observed that Joe Vanelli was coming back to them. Daisy, observing it too, addressed herself again to her countrymen. Since you have mentioned it, she said, I am engaged. Winterborne looked at her. He had stopped laughing. You don't believe, she added. He was silent a moment. And then, yes, I believe it, he said. Oh, no you don't, she answered. Well then, I am not. The young girl and her teacher One were on their way to the gate of the enclosure, so that Winterborne, who had but lately entered, presently took leave of them. A week afterward he went to dine at a beautiful villa on the Selian Hill, and on arriving dismissed his hired vehicle. The evening was charming, and he promised himself the satisfaction of walking home beneath the Art of Constantine, and past the vaguely lighted monuments of the Forum. There was a waning moon in the sky, and her radiance was not brilliant, but she was veiled in the thin cloud curtain, which seemed to diffuse and equalize it. When, on his return from the villa, it was eleven o'clock, Winterborne approached the dusky circle of the Coliseum, it recurred to him as a lover of the picturesque, that the interior, in the pale moonshine, would be well worth a glance. He turned aside and walked to one of the empty arches, near which, as he observed, an open carriage, one of the little Roman street-cabs, was stationed. Then he passed in, among the cavernous shadows of the great structure, and emerged upon the clear and silent arena. The place had never seemed to him more impressive. One half of the gigantic circus was in deep shade—the other was sleeping in the luminous dusk. As he stood there he began to murmur Byron's famous lines out of Manfred, but before he had finished his quotation he remembered that if nocturnal meditations in the Coliseum are recommended by the poets, they are deprecated by the doctors. The historic atmosphere was there, certainly, but the historic atmosphere, scientifically considered, was no better than a villainous miasma. Winterborne walked to the middle of the arena, to take a more general glance, intending thereafter to make a hasty retreat. The great cross in the center was covered with shadow. It was only as he drew near it that he made it out distinctly. Then he saw that two persons were stationed upon the low steps which formed its base. One of these was a woman, seated. Her companion was standing in front of her. Presently the sound of the woman's voice came to him distinctly in the warm night air. Well, he looks at us as one of the old lions or tigers may have looked at the Christian martyrs. These were the words he heard in the familiar accent of Miss Daisy Miller, that us hope he is not very hungry, responded the ingenious Jovenelie. He will have to take me first. You will serve for dessert. Winterborne stopped with a sort of horror, and it must be added with a sort of relief. It was as if a sudden illumination had been flashed upon the ambiguity of Daisy's behavior, and the riddle had become easy to read. She was a young lady whom a gentleman need no longer be at pains to respect. He stood there, looking at her. Looking at her companion and not reflecting that though he saw them vaguely, he himself must have been more brightly visible. He felt angry with himself that he had bothered so much about the right way of regarding Miss Daisy Miller. Then, as he was going to advance again, he checked himself, not from the fear that he was doing her injustice, but from a sense of the danger of appearing unbecomingly exhilarated by this sudden revulsion from cautious criticism. He turned away toward the entrance of the place. But as he did so, he heard Daisy speak again. Why, it was Mr. Winterborne. He saw me, and he cuts me. What a clever little reprobate she was, and how smartly she played it injured innocence. But he wouldn't cut her. Winterborne came forward again, and went toward the great cross. Daisy had got up. Joe Vanelli lifted his hat. Winterborne had now begun to think simply of the craziness, from a sanitary point of view, of a delicate young girl lounging away the evening in this nest of malaria. What if she were a clever little reprobate? That was no reason for her dying of the pernishosa. How long have you been here? he asked almost brutally. Daisy, lovely in the flattering moonlight, looked at him a moment. Then, all the evening, she answered gently, I never saw anything so pretty. I'm afraid, said Winterborne, that you will not think Roman fever very pretty. This is the way people catch it. I wonder, he added, turning to Joe Vanelli, that you, a native Roman, should count in such a terrible indiscretion. Ah, said the handsome native, for myself I am not afraid. Neither am I for you. I am speaking for this young lady. Joe Vanelli lifted his well-shaped eyebrows and showed his brilliant teeth. But he took Winterborne's rebuke with docility. I told the seniorina it was a grave indiscretion. But when was the seniorina ever prudent? I never was sick, and I don't mean to be, the seniorina declared. I don't look like much, but I am healthy. I was bound to see the coliseum by moonlight. I shouldn't have wanted to go home without that. And we've had the most beautiful time, haven't we, Mr. Joe Vanelli? If there has been any danger Eugenio can give me some pills. He has got some splendid pills. I should advise you, said Winterborne, to drive home as fast as possible and take one. What you say is very wise, Joe Vanelli rejoined. I will go and make sure the carriage is at hand. And he went forward rapidly. Daisy followed with Winterborne. He kept looking at her. She seemed not in the least embarrassed. Winterborne said nothing. Daisy chattered about the beauty of the place. Well, I have seen the coliseum by moonlight, she exclaimed. That's one good thing. Then, noticing Winterborne's silence, she asked him why he didn't speak. He made no answer. He only began to laugh. They passed under one of the dark archways. Joe Vanelli was in front with the carriage. Here Daisy stopped for a moment, looking at the young American. Did you believe I was engaged the other day? She asked. It doesn't matter what I believe the other day, said Winterborne, still laughing. Well, what do you believe now? I believe that it makes very little difference whether you are engaged or not. He felt the young girl's pretty eyes fixed upon him through the thick gloom of the archway. She was apparently going to answer. But Joe Vanelli hurried her forward. Quick, quick, he said. If we get in by midnight we are quite safe. Daisy took her seat in the carriage, and the fortunate Italian placed himself beside her. Don't forget Eugenio's pills, said Winterborne, as he lifted his hat. I don't care, said Daisy, in a little strange tone, whether I have Roman fever or not. Upon this the cab driver cracked his whip, and they rolled away over the desultory patches of the antique pavement. Winterborne, to do him justice as it were, mentioned to no one that he had encountered Miss Miller at midnight in the Coliseum with a gentleman. But nevertheless a couple of days later the factor of her having been there under these circumstances was known to every member of the Little American Circle, and commented accordingly. Winterborne reflected that they had of course known it at the hotel, and that after Daisy's return there had been an exchange of remarks between the porter and the cab driver. But the young man was conscious, at the same moment, that it had ceased to be a matter of serious regret to him that the Little American Flirt should be talked about by low-minded menials. These people a day or two later had serious information to give. The Little American Flirt was alarmingly ill. Winterborne, when the rumour came to him, immediately went to the hotel for more news. He found that two or three charitable friends had preceded him, and that they were being entertained in Mrs. Miller's salon by Randolph. It's going round at night, said Randolph. That's what made her sick. She's always going round at night. I shouldn't think she'd want to. It's so plaguely dark. You can't see anything here at night except when there's a moon. In America there's always a moon." Mrs. Miller was invisible. She was now at least, giving her daughter the advantage of her society. It was evident that Daisy was dangerously ill. Winterborne went often to ask for news of her, and once he saw Mrs. Miller, who, though deeply alarmed, was, rather to his surprise, perfectly composed, and as it appeared, a most efficient and judicious nurse. She talked a good deal about Dr. Davis, but Winterborne paid her the compliment of saying to himself that she was not, after all, such a monstrous goose. Daisy spoke of you the other day, she said to him. Half the time she doesn't know what she's saying, but that time I think she did. She gave me a message she told me to tell you. She told me to tell you that she was never engaged to that handsome Italian. I am sure I am very glad. Mr. Jovenelie hasn't been near us since she was taken ill. I thought he was so much of a gentleman, but I don't call that very polite. A lady told me that she was afraid I was angry with him for taking Daisy round at night. Well, so I am, but I suppose he knows I'm a lady. I would scorn to scold him. Anyway, she said she's not engaged. I don't know why she wanted you to know. But she said to me three times. Mind you tell Mr. Winterborne. And then she told me to ask you if you remembered the time you went to that castle in Switzerland. But I said I wouldn't give any such messages as that. Only if she's not engaged I'm sure I'm glad to know it. But, as Winterborne had said, it mattered very little. A week after this the poor girl died. It had been a terrible case of the fever. Daisy's grave was in the Little Protestant Cemetery, in an angle of the wall of Imperial Rome, beneath the cypresses and the thick spring flowers. Winterborne stood there beside it with a number of other mourners, a number larger than the scandal excited by the young lady's career would have led you to expect. Near him stood Jovenelie, who came nearer still before Winterborne turned away. Jovenelie was very pale. On this occasion he had no flower in his buttonhole. He seemed to wish to say something. At last he said, she was the most beautiful young lady I ever saw. And the most amiable. And then he added in a moment, and she was the most innocent. Winterborne looked at him and presently repeated his words. And the most innocent. The most innocent. Winterborne felt sore and angry. Why the devil, he asked? Did you take her to that fatal place? Mr. Jovenelie's urbanity was apparently imperturbable. He looked on the ground a moment, and then he said, for myself I had no fear. And she wanted to go. That was no reason, Winterborne declared. The subtle Roman again dropped his eyes. If she had lived I should have got nothing. She would never have married me, I am sure. She would never have married you. For a moment I hoped so. But no. I am sure. Winterborne listened to him. He stood staring at the raw protuberance among the April daisies. When he turned away again, Mr. Jovenelie, with his light slow step, had retired. Winterborne almost immediately left Rome. But the following summer he again met his aunt, Mrs. Castello, at Vive. Mrs. Castello was fond of Vive. In the interval Winterborne had often thought of Daisy Miller and her mystifying manners. One day he spoke of her to his aunt, said it was on his conscience that he had done her injustice. I am sure I don't know, said Mrs. Castello, how did your injustice affect her? She sent me a message before her death, which I didn't understand at the time. But I have understood it since. She would have appreciated one's esteem. Is that a modest way, asked Mrs. Castello, of saying she would have reciprocated one's affection? Winterborne offered no answer to this question. But he presently said, You were right in that remark you made last summer. I was booked to make a mistake. I have lived too long in foreign parts. Nevertheless he went back to live at Geneva whence they continued to come the most contradictory accounts of his motives of sojourn. A report that he is studying hard, an intimation that he is much interested in a very clever foreign lady.