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Page 28
"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.
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