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Page 9
He had, however, engaged to do more than proved feasible, in promising
to present his aunt, Mrs. Costello, to Miss Daisy Miller.
As soon as the former lady had got better of her headache,
he waited upon her in her apartment; and, after the proper
inquiries in regard to her health, he asked her if she had
observed in the hotel an American family--a mamma, a daughter,
and a little boy.
"And a courier?" said Mrs. Costello. "Oh yes, I have observed them.
Seen them--heard them--and kept out of their way." Mrs. Costello was
a widow with a fortune; a person of much distinction, who frequently
intimated that, if she were not so dreadfully liable to sick headaches,
she would probably have left a deeper impress upon her time. She had a long,
pale face, a high nose, and a great deal of very striking white hair,
which she wore in large puffs and rouleaux over the top of her head.
She had two sons married in New York and another who was now in Europe.
This young man was amusing himself at Hamburg, and, though he was
on his travels, was rarely perceived to visit any particular city
at the moment selected by his mother for her own appearance there.
Her nephew, who had come up to Vevey expressly to see her, was therefore
more attentive than those who, as she said, were nearer to her.
He had imbibed at Geneva the idea that one must always be attentive
to one's aunt. Mrs. Costello had not seen him for many years,
and she was greatly pleased with him, manifesting her approbation
by initiating him into many of the secrets of that social sway which,
as she gave him to understand, she exerted in the American capital.
She admitted that she was very exclusive; but, if he were acquainted with
New York, he would see that one had to be. And her picture of the minutely
hierarchical constitution of the society of that city, which she presented
to him in many different lights, was, to Winterbourne's imagination,
almost oppressively striking.
He immediately perceived, from her tone, that Miss Daisy Miller's
place in the social scale was low. "I am afraid you don't approve
of them," he said.
"They are very common," Mrs. Costello declared. "They are the sort
of Americans that one does one's duty by not--not accepting."
"Ah, you don't accept them?" said the young man.
"I can't, my dear Frederick. I would if I could, but I can't."
"The young girl is very pretty," said Winterbourne in a moment.
"Of course she's pretty. But she is very common."
"I see what you mean, of course," said Winterbourne after another pause.
"She has that charming look that they all have," his aunt resumed.
"I can't think where they pick it up; and she dresses
in perfection--no, you don't know how well she dresses.
I can't think where they get their taste."
"But, my dear aunt, she is not, after all, a Comanche savage."
"She is a young lady," said Mrs. Costello, "who has an intimacy
with her mamma's courier."
"An intimacy with the courier?" the young man demanded.
"Oh, the mother is just as bad! They treat the courier
like a familiar friend--like a gentleman. I shouldn't wonder
if he dines with them. Very likely they have never seen a man
with such good manners, such fine clothes, so like a gentleman.
He probably corresponds to the young lady's idea of a count.
He sits with them in the garden in the evening.
I think he smokes."
Winterbourne listened with interest to these disclosures;
they helped him to make up his mind about Miss Daisy.
Evidently she was rather wild. "Well," he said, "I am not
a courier, and yet she was very charming to me."
"You had better have said at first," said Mrs. Costello with dignity,
"that you had made her acquaintance."
"We simply met in the garden, and we talked a bit."
"Tout bonnement! And pray what did you say?"
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