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Page 32
"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 Giovanelli 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 Winterbourne 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.
Winterbourne, to do him justice, as it were, mentioned to no one
that he had encountered Miss Miller, at midnight, in the Colosseum
with a gentleman; but nevertheless, a couple of days later, the fact
of her having been there under these circumstances was known to every
member of the little American circle, and commented accordingly.
Winterbourne 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. Winterbourne, when the
rumor 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 plaguy 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.
Winterbourne 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 Winterbourne 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 never was engaged to that handsome Italian. I am sure I am
very glad; Mr. Giovanelli 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 he 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 says 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. Winterbourne.' And then she told me to ask
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
is not engaged, I'm sure I'm glad to know it."
But, as Winterbourne 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.
Winterbourne 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 Giovanelli,
who came nearer still before Winterbourne turned away.
Giovanelli 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."
Winterbourne looked at him and presently repeated his words,
"And the most innocent?"
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