"I am much obliged to you," laughed the young man.
"You might have come to see me!" said Daisy.
"I arrived only yesterday."
"I don"t believe that!" the young girl declared.
Winterbourne turned with a protesting smile to her mother, but this lady evaded his glance, and, seating herself, fixed her eyes upon her son.
"We"ve got a bigger place than this," said Randolph. "It"s all gold on the walls."
Mrs. Miller turned uneasily in her chair. "I told you if I were to bring you, you would say something!" she murmured.
"I told YOU!" Randolph exclaimed. "I tell YOU, sir!" he added jocosely, giving Winterbourne a thump on the knee. "It IS bigger, too!"
Daisy had entered upon a lively conversation with her hostess; Winterbourne judged it becoming to address a few words to her mother. "I hope you have been well since we parted at Vevey," he said.
Mrs. Miller now certainly looked at him--at his chin. "Not very well, sir," she answered.
"She"s got the dyspepsia," said Randolph. "I"ve got it too. Father"s got it. I"ve got it most!"
This announcement, instead of embarra.s.sing Mrs. Miller, seemed to relieve her. "I suffer from the liver," she said. "I think it"s this climate; it"s less bracing than Schenectady, especially in the winter season. I don"t know whether you know we reside at Schenectady. I was saying to Daisy that I certainly hadn"t found any one like Dr. Davis, and I didn"t believe I should. Oh, at Schenectady he stands first; they think everything of him. He has so much to do, and yet there was nothing he wouldn"t do for me. He said he never saw anything like my dyspepsia, but he was bound to cure it. I"m sure there was nothing he wouldn"t try. He was just going to try something new when we came off. Mr. Miller wanted Daisy to see Europe for herself. But I wrote to Mr. Miller that it seems as if I couldn"t get on without Dr. Davis. At Schenectady he stands at the very top; and there"s a great deal of sickness there, too.
It affects my sleep."
Winterbourne had a good deal of pathological gossip with Dr. Davis"s patient, during which Daisy chattered unremittingly to her own companion. The young man asked Mrs. Miller how she was pleased with Rome. "Well, I must say I am disappointed," she answered. "We had heard so much about it; I suppose we had heard too much. But we couldn"t help that. We had been led to expect something different."
"Ah, wait a little, and you will become very fond of it," said Winterbourne.
"I hate it worse and worse every day!" cried Randolph.
"You are like the infant Hannibal," said Winterbourne.
"No, I ain"t!" Randolph declared at a venture.
"You are not much like an infant," said his mother. "But we have seen places," she resumed, "that I should put a long way before Rome." And in reply to Winterbourne"s interrogation, "There"s Zurich," she concluded, "I think Zurich is lovely; and we hadn"t heard half so much about it."
"The best place we"ve seen is the City of Richmond!" said Randolph.
"He means the ship," his mother explained. "We crossed in that ship.
Randolph had a good time on the City of Richmond."
"It"s the best place I"ve seen," the child repeated. "Only it was turned the wrong way."
"Well, we"ve got to turn the right way some time," said Mrs. Miller with a little laugh. Winterbourne expressed the hope that her daughter at least found some gratification in Rome, and she declared that Daisy was quite carried away. "It"s on account of the society--the society"s splendid. She goes round everywhere; she has made a great number of acquaintances. Of course she goes round more than I do. I must say they have been very sociable; they have taken her right in. And then she knows a great many gentlemen. Oh, she thinks there"s nothing like Rome.
Of course, it"s a great deal pleasanter for a young lady if she knows plenty of gentlemen."
By this time Daisy had turned her attention again to Winterbourne. "I"ve been telling Mrs. Walker how mean you were!" the young girl announced.
"And what is the evidence you have offered?" asked Winterbourne, rather annoyed at Miss Miller"s want of appreciation of the zeal of an admirer who on his way down to Rome had stopped neither at Bologna nor at Florence, simply because of a certain sentimental impatience. He remembered that a cynical compatriot had once told him that American women--the pretty ones, and this gave a largeness to the axiom--were at once the most exacting in the world and the least endowed with a sense of indebtedness.
"Why, you were awfully mean at Vevey," said Daisy. "You wouldn"t do anything. You wouldn"t stay there when I asked you."
"My dearest young lady," cried Winterbourne, with eloquence, "have I come all the way to Rome to encounter your reproaches?"
"Just hear him say that!" said Daisy to her hostess, giving a twist to a bow on this lady"s dress. "Did you ever hear anything so quaint?"
"So quaint, my dear?" murmured Mrs. Walker in the tone of a partisan of Winterbourne.
"Well, I don"t know," said Daisy, fingering Mrs. Walker"s ribbons. "Mrs.
Walker, I want to tell you something."
"Mother-r," interposed Randolph, with his rough ends to his words, "I tell you you"ve got to go. Eugenio"ll raise--something!"
"I"m not afraid of Eugenio," said Daisy with a toss of her head. "Look here, Mrs. Walker," she went on, "you know I"m coming to your party."
"I am delighted to hear it."
"I"ve got a lovely dress!"
"I am very sure of that."
"But I want to ask a favor--permission to bring a friend."
"I shall be happy to see any of your friends," said Mrs. Walker, turning with a smile to Mrs. Miller.
"Oh, they are not my friends," answered Daisy"s mamma, smiling shyly in her own fashion. "I never spoke to them."
"It"s an intimate friend of mine--Mr. Giovanelli," said Daisy without a tremor in her clear little voice or a shadow on her brilliant little face.
Mrs. Walker was silent a moment; she gave a rapid glance at Winterbourne. "I shall be glad to see Mr. Giovanelli," she then said.
"He"s an Italian," Daisy pursued with the prettiest serenity. "He"s a great friend of mine; he"s the handsomest man in the world--except Mr.
Winterbourne! He knows plenty of Italians, but he wants to know some Americans. He thinks ever so much of Americans. He"s tremendously clever. He"s perfectly lovely!"
It was settled that this brilliant personage should be brought to Mrs.
Walker"s party, and then Mrs. Miller prepared to take her leave. "I guess we"ll go back to the hotel," she said.
"You may go back to the hotel, Mother, but I"m going to take a walk,"
said Daisy.
"She"s going to walk with Mr. Giovanelli," Randolph proclaimed.
"I am going to the Pincio," said Daisy, smiling.
"Alone, my dear--at this hour?" Mrs. Walker asked. The afternoon was drawing to a close--it was the hour for the throng of carriages and of contemplative pedestrians. "I don"t think it"s safe, my dear," said Mrs.
Walker.
"Neither do I," subjoined Mrs. Miller. "You"ll get the fever, as sure as you live. Remember what Dr. Davis told you!"
"Give her some medicine before she goes," said Randolph.