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Page 21
"I certainly shall not help you to find him," Winterbourne declared.
"Then I shall find him without you," cried Miss Daisy.
"You certainly won't leave me!" cried Winterbourne.
She burst into her little laugh. "Are you afraid you'll get lost--
or run over? But there's Giovanelli, leaning against that tree.
He's staring at the women in the carriages: did you ever see
anything so cool?"
Winterbourne perceived at some distance a little man standing with
folded arms nursing his cane. He had a handsome face, an artfully
poised hat, a glass in one eye, and a nosegay in his buttonhole.
Winterbourne looked at him a moment and then said, "Do you mean
to speak to that man?"
"Do I mean to speak to him? Why, you don't suppose I mean
to communicate by signs?"
"Pray understand, then," said Winterbourne, "that I intend
to remain with you."
Daisy stopped and looked at him, without a sign of troubled
consciousness in her face, with nothing but the presence of her
charming eyes and her happy dimples. "Well, she's a cool one!"
thought the young man.
"I don't like the way you say that," said Daisy.
"It's too imperious."
"I beg your pardon if I say it wrong. The main point is to give
you an idea of my meaning."
The young girl looked at him more gravely, but with eyes that were
prettier than ever. "I have never allowed a gentleman to dictate to me,
or to interfere with anything I do."
"I think you have made a mistake," said Winterbourne.
"You should sometimes listen to a gentleman--the right one."
Daisy began to laugh again. "I do nothing but listen to gentlemen!"
she exclaimed. "Tell me if Mr. Giovanelli is the right one?"
The gentleman with the nosegay in his bosom had now perceived our two friends,
and was approaching the young girl with obsequious rapidity. He bowed to
Winterbourne as well as to the latter's companion; he had a brilliant smile,
an intelligent eye; Winterbourne thought him not a bad-looking fellow.
But he nevertheless said to Daisy, "No, he's not the right one."
Daisy evidently had a natural talent for performing introductions;
she mentioned the name of each of her companions to the other.
She strolled alone with one of them on each side of her; Mr. Giovanelli,
who spoke English very cleverly--Winterbourne afterward learned
that he had practiced the idiom upon a great many American heiresses--
addressed her a great deal of very polite nonsense; he was extremely
urbane, and the young American, who said nothing, reflected upon
that profundity of Italian cleverness which enables people to appear
more gracious in proportion as they are more acutely disappointed.
Giovanelli, of course, had counted upon something more intimate;
he had not bargained for a party of three. But he kept his
temper in a manner which suggested far-stretching intentions.
Winterbourne flattered himself that he had taken his measure.
"He is not a gentleman," said the young American;
"he is only a clever imitation of one. He is a music master,
or a penny-a-liner, or a third-rate artist. D__n his good looks!"
Mr. Giovanelli had certainly a very pretty face; but Winterbourne felt
a superior indignation at his own lovely fellow countrywoman's not
knowing the difference between a spurious gentleman and a real one.
Giovanelli chattered and jested and made himself wonderfully agreeable.
It was true that, if he was an imitation, the imitation was brilliant.
"Nevertheless," Winterbourne said to himself, "a nice girl ought to know!"
And then he came back to the question whether this was, in fact,
a nice girl. Would a nice girl, even allowing for her being a little
American flirt, make a rendezvous with a presumably low-lived foreigner?
The rendezvous in this case, indeed, had been in broad daylight and in
the most crowded corner of Rome, but was it not impossible to regard
the choice of these circumstances as a proof of extreme cynicism?
Singular though it may seem, Winterbourne was vexed that the young girl,
in joining her amoroso, should not appear more impatient
of his own company, and he was vexed because of his inclination.
It was impossible to regard her as a perfectly well-conducted
young lady; she was wanting in a certain indispensable delicacy.
It would therefore simplify matters greatly to be able to treat
her as the object of one of those sentiments which are called by
romancers "lawless passions." That she should seem to wish to get rid
of him would help him to think more lightly of her, and to be able
to think more lightly of her would make her much less perplexing.
But Daisy, on this occasion, continued to present herself as an
inscrutable combination of audacity and innocence.
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