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Page 7
"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.
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