"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, Miss Chandler's--what's her name?--Miss Miller's intrigue with that little barber's block.""Do you call it an intrigue," Winterbourne asked--"an affair that goes on with such peculiar publicity?""That's their folly," said Mrs. Costello; "it's not their merit.""No," rejoined Winterbourne, with something of that pensiveness to which his aunt had alluded. "I don't believe that there is anything to be called an intrigue.""I have heard a dozen people speak of it; they say she is quite carried away by him.""They are certainly very intimate," said Winterbourne.
Mrs. Costello 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 Winterbourne, "and I don't believe he hopes to marry her.""You may be very sure she thinks of nothing. 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. Costello, "depend upon it that she may tell you any moment that she is 'engaged.'""I think that is more than Giovanelli expects," said Winterbourne.
"Who is Giovanelli?"
"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 cavaliere avvocato. 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 expensiveness 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.
Giovanelli knows that he hasn't a title to offer.
If he were only a count or a marchese! He must wonder at his luck, at the way they have taken him up.""He accounts for it by his handsome face and thinks Miss Miller a young lady qui se passe ses fantaisies!"said Mrs. Costello.
"It is very true," Winterbourne pursued, "that Daisy and her mamma 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 marchese begins.
I believe that they are intellectually incapable of that conception.""Ah! but the avvocato can't believe it," said Mrs. Costello.
Of the observation excited by Daisy's "intrigue," Winterbourne gathered that day at St. Peter's sufficient evidence. A dozen of the American colonists in Rome came to talk with Mrs. Costello, 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. Costello and her friends, there was a great deal said about poor little Miss Miller's going really "too far."Winterbourne 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 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 Corso 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 X by Velasquez which hangs in one of the cabinets of the palace, and then said, "And 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 Winterbourne'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 papal portrait was enshrined.
"Who was her companion?" asked Winterbourne.
"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 meilleur monde.""So she is!" answered Winterbourne; 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 absence.
"She's gone out somewhere with Mr. Giovanelli," said Mrs. Miller.
"She's always going round with Mr. Giovanelli.""I have noticed that they are very intimate," Winterbourne 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. Giovanelli promise to tell me, if SHE doesn't.