Daisy Miller: A Study
relish for feminine beauty; he was addicted to observing and analyzing
it; and as regards this young lady’s face he made several observations.
It was not at all insipid, but it was not exactly expressive; and
though it was eminently delicate, Winterbourne mentally accused it--very
forgivingly--of a want of finish. He thought it very possible that
Master Randolph’s sister was a coquette; he was sure she had a spirit of
her own; but in her bright, sweet, superficial little visage there was
no mockery, no irony. Before long it became obvious that she was much
disposed toward conversation. She told him that they were going to Rome
for the winter--she and her mother and Randolph. She asked him if he was
a “real American”; she shouldn’t have taken him for one; he seemed more
like a German--this was said after a little hesitation--especially when
he spoke. Winterbourne, laughing, answered that he had met Germans who
spoke like Americans, but that he had not, so far as he remembered, met
an American who spoke like a German. Then he asked her if she should not
be more comfortable in sitting upon the bench which he had just quitted.
She answered that she liked standing up and walking about; but she
presently sat down. She told him she was from New York State--“if you
know where that is.” Winterbourne learned more about her by catching
hold of her small, slippery brother and making him stand a few minutes
by his side.
“Tell me your name, my boy,” he said.
“Randolph C. Miller,” said the boy sharply. “And I’ll tell you her
name;” and he leveled his alpenstock at his sister.
“You had better wait till you are asked!” said this young lady calmly.
“I should like very much to know your name,” said Winterbourne.
“Her name is Daisy Miller!” cried the child. “But that isn’t her real
name; that isn’t her name on her cards.”
“It’s a pity you haven’t got one of my cards!” said Miss Miller.
“Her real name is Annie P. Miller,” the boy went on.
“Ask him HIS name,” said his sister, indicating Winterbourne.
But on this point Randolph seemed perfectly indifferent; he continued to
supply information with regard to his own family. “My father’s name is
Ezra B. Miller,” he announced. “My father ain’t in Europe; my father’s
in a better place than Europe.”
Winterbourne imagined for a moment that this was the manner in which the
child had been taught to intimate that Mr. Miller had been removed to
the sphere of celestial reward. But Randolph immediately added, “My
father’s in Schenectady. He’s got a big business. My father’s rich, you
bet!”
“Well!” ejaculated Miss Miller, lowering her parasol and looking at
the embroidered border. Winterbourne presently released the child,
who departed, dragging his alpenstock along the path. “He doesn’t like
Europe,” said the young girl. “He wants to go back.”
“To Schenectady, you mean?”
“Yes; he wants to go right home. He hasn’t got any boys here. There is
one boy here, but he always goes round with a teacher; they won’t let
him play.”
“And your brother hasn’t any teacher?” Winterbourne inquired.
“Mother thought of getting him one, to travel round with us. There was a
lady told her of a very good teacher; an American lady--perhaps you know
her--Mrs. Sanders. I think she came from Boston. She told her of this
teacher, and we thought of getting him to travel round with us. But
Randolph said he didn’t want a teacher traveling round with us. He said
he wouldn’t have lessons when he was in the cars. And we ARE in the cars
about half the time. There was an English lady we met in the cars--I
think her name was Miss Featherstone; perhaps you know her. She wanted
to know why I didn’t give Randolph lessons--give him ‘instruction,’ she
called it. I guess he could give me more instruction than I could give
him. He’s very smart.”
“Yes,” said Winterbourne; “he seems very smart.”
“Mother’s going to get a teacher for him as soon as we get to Italy. Can
you get good teachers in Italy?”
“Very good, I should think,” said Winterbourne.
“Or else she’s going to find some school. He ought to learn some more.
He’s only nine. He’s going to college.” And in this way Miss Miller
continued to converse upon the affairs of her family and upon other
topics. She sat there with her extremely pretty hands, ornamented with
very brilliant rings, folded in her lap, and with her pretty eyes now
resting upon those of Winterbourne, now wandering over the garden, the
people who passed by, and the beautiful view. She talked to Winterbourne
as if she had known him a long time. He found it very pleasant. It was
many years since he had heard a young girl talk so much. It might have
been said of this unknown young lady, who had come and sat down beside
him upon a bench, that she chattered. She was very quiet; she sat in a
charming, tranquil attitude; but her lips and her eyes were constantly
moving. She had a soft, slender, agreeable voice, and her tone was
decidedly sociable. She gave Winterbourne a history of her movements
and intentions and those of her mother and brother, in Europe, and
enumerated, in particular, the various hotels at which they had stopped.
“That English lady in the cars,” she said--“Miss Featherstone--asked me
if we didn’t all live in hotels in America. I told her I had never been
in so many hotels in my life as since I came to Europe. I have never
seen so many--it’s nothing but hotels.” But Miss Miller did not make
this remark with a querulous accent; she appeared to be in the best
humor with everything. She declared that the hotels were very good, when
once you got used to their ways, and that Europe was perfectly sweet.
She was not disappointed--not a bit. Perhaps it was because she had
heard so much about it before. She had ever so many intimate friends
that had been there ever so many times. And then she had had ever so
many dresses and things from Paris. Whenever she put on a Paris dress
she felt as if she were in Europe.
“It was a kind of a wishing cap,” said Winterbourne.
“Yes,” said Miss Miller without examining this analogy; “it always made
me wish I was here. But I needn’t have done that for dresses. I am sure
they send all the pretty ones to America; you see the most frightful
things here. The only thing I don’t like,” she proceeded, “is the
society. There isn’t any society; or, if there is, I don’t know where it
keeps itself. Do you? I suppose there is some society somewhere, but I
haven’t seen anything of it. I’m very fond of society, and I have always
had a great deal of it. I don’t mean only in Schenectady, but in New
York. I used to go to New York every winter. In New York I had lots of
society. Last winter I had seventeen dinners given me; and three of them
were by gentlemen,” added Daisy Miller. “I have more friends in New York
than in Schenectady--more gentleman friends; and more young lady friends
too,” she resumed in a moment. She paused again for an instant; she was
looking at Winterbourne with all her prettiness in her lively eyes and
in her light, slightly monotonous smile. “I have always had,” she said,
“a great deal of gentlemen’s society.”
Poor Winterbourne was amused, perplexed, and decidedly charmed. He
had never yet heard a young girl express herself in just this fashion;
never, at least, save in cases where to say such things seemed a kind of
demonstrative evidence of a certain laxity of deportment. And yet was he
to accuse Miss Daisy Miller of actual or potential inconduite, as they
said at Geneva? He felt that he had lived at Geneva so long that he
had lost a good deal; he had become dishabituated to the American tone.
Never, indeed, since he had grown old enough to appreciate things, had
he encountered a young American girl of so pronounced a type as this.
Certainly she was very charming, but how deucedly sociable! Was she
simply a pretty girl from New York State? Were they all like that, the
pretty girls who had a good deal of gentlemen’s society? Or was she also
a designing, an audacious, an unscrupulous young person? Winterbourne
had lost his instinct in this matter, and his reason could not help him.
Miss Daisy Miller looked extremely innocent. Some people had told him
that, after all, American girls were exceedingly innocent; and others
had told him that, after all, they were not. He was inclined to think
Miss Daisy Miller was a flirt--a pretty American flirt. He had never, as
yet, had any relations with young ladies of this category. He had
known, here in Europe, two or three women--persons older than Miss Daisy
Miller, and provided, for respectability’s sake, with husbands--who were
great coquettes--dangerous, terrible women, with whom one’s relations
were liable to take a serious turn. But this young girl was not a
coquette in that sense; she was very unsophisticated; she was only a
pretty American flirt. Winterbourne was almost grateful for having found
the formula that applied to Miss Daisy Miller. He leaned back in his
seat; he remarked to himself that she had the most charming nose he had
ever seen; he wondered what were the regular conditions and limitations
of one’s intercourse with a pretty American flirt. It presently became
apparent that he was on the way to learn.
“Have you been to that old castle?” asked the young girl, pointing with
her parasol to the far-gleaming walls of the Chateau de Chillon.
“Yes, formerly, more than once,” said Winterbourne. “You too, I suppose,
have seen it?”
“No; we haven’t been there. I want to go there dreadfully. Of course I
mean to go there. I wouldn’t go away from here without having seen that
old castle.”
“It’s a very pretty excursion,” said Winterbourne, “and very easy to
make. You can drive, you know, or you can go by the little steamer.”
“You can go in the cars,” said Miss Miller.
“Yes; you can go in the cars,” Winterbourne assented.
“Our courier says they take you right up to the castle,” the young girl
continued. “We were going last week, but my mother gave out. She suffers
dreadfully from dyspepsia. She said she couldn’t go. Randolph wouldn’t
go either; he says he doesn’t think much of old castles. But I guess
we’ll go this week, if we can get Randolph.”
“Your brother is not interested in ancient monuments?” Winterbourne
inquired, smiling.
“He says he don’t care much about old castles. He’s only nine. He
wants to stay at the hotel. Mother’s afraid to leave him alone, and the
courier won’t stay with him; so we haven’t been to many places. But it
will be too bad if we don’t go up there.” And Miss Miller pointed again
at the Chateau de Chillon.
“I should think it might be arranged,” said Winterbourne. “Couldn’t you
get some one to stay for the afternoon with Randolph?”
Miss Miller looked at him a moment, and then, very placidly, “I wish YOU
would stay with him!” she said.
Winterbourne hesitated a moment. “I should much rather go to Chillon
with you.”
“With me?” asked the young girl with the same placidity.
She didn’t rise, blushing, as a young girl at Geneva would have done;
and yet Winterbourne, conscious that he had been very bold, thought
it possible she was offended. “With your mother,” he answered very
respectfully.
But it seemed that both his audacity and his respect were lost upon Miss
Daisy Miller. “I guess my mother won’t go, after all,” she said. “She
don’t like to ride round in the afternoon. But did you really mean what
you said just now--that you would like to go up there?”
“Most earnestly,” Winterbourne declared.
“Then we may arrange it. If mother will stay with Randolph, I guess
Eugenio will.”
“Eugenio?” the young man inquired.
“Eugenio’s our courier. He doesn’t like to stay with Randolph; he’s the
most fastidious man I ever saw. But he’s a splendid courier. I guess