Americans -- Europe -- Fiction; Europe -- Fiction; Psychological fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Daisy followed with Winterbourne. He kept looking at her; she seemed
not in the least embarrassed. Winterbourne said nothing; Daisy chattered
about the beauty of the place. “Well, I HAVE seen the Colosseum by
moonlight!” she exclaimed. “That’s one good thing.” Then, noticing
Winterbourne’s silence, she asked him why he didn’t speak. He made
no answer; he only began to laugh. They passed under one of the dark
archways; Giovanelli was in front with the carriage. Here Daisy stopped
a moment, looking at the young American. “DID you believe I was engaged,
the other day?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter what I believed the other day,” said Winterbourne,
still laughing.
“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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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