Daisy Miller: A Study — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Daisy Miller: A Study
John Stuart Mill · en
The courier looked for a moment at Winterbourne--the latter thought he
was smiling--and then, solemnly, with a bow, “As mademoiselle pleases!”
he said.
“Oh, I hoped you would make a fuss!” said Daisy. “I don’t care to go
now.”
“I myself shall make a fuss if you don’t go,” said Winterbourne.
“That’s all I want--a little fuss!” And the young girl began to laugh
again.
“Mr. Randolph has gone to bed!” the courier announced frigidly.
“Oh, Daisy; now we can go!” said Mrs. Miller.
Daisy turned away from Winterbourne, looking at him, smiling and fanning
herself. “Good night,” she said; “I hope you are disappointed, or
disgusted, or something!”
He looked at her, taking the hand she offered him. “I am puzzled,” he
answered.
“Well, I hope it won’t keep you awake!” she said very smartly; and,
under the escort of the privileged Eugenio, the two ladies passed toward
the house.
Winterbourne stood looking after them; he was indeed puzzled. He
lingered beside the lake for a quarter of an hour, turning over the
mystery of the young girl’s sudden familiarities and caprices. But
the only very definite conclusion he came to was that he should enjoy
deucedly “going off” with her somewhere.
Two days afterward he went off with her to the Castle of Chillon. He
waited for her in the large hall of the hotel, where the couriers, the
servants, the foreign tourists, were lounging about and staring. It was
not the place he should have chosen, but she had appointed it. She came
tripping downstairs, buttoning her long gloves, squeezing her folded
parasol against her pretty figure, dressed in the perfection of a
soberly elegant traveling costume. Winterbourne was a man of imagination
and, as our ancestors used to say, sensibility; as he looked at her
dress and, on the great staircase, her little rapid, confiding step, he
felt as if there were something romantic going forward. He could have
believed he was going to elope with her. He passed out with her among
all the idle people that were assembled there; they were all looking
at her very hard; she had begun to chatter as soon as she joined him.
Winterbourne’s preference had been that they should be conveyed to
Chillon in a carriage; but she expressed a lively wish to go in the
little steamer; she declared that she had a passion for steamboats.
There was always such a lovely breeze upon the water, and you saw such
lots of people. The sail was not long, but Winterbourne’s companion
found time to say a great many things. To the young man himself their
little excursion was so much of an escapade--an adventure--that, even
allowing for her habitual sense of freedom, he had some expectation of
seeing her regard it in the same way. But it must be confessed that,
in this particular, he was disappointed. Daisy Miller was extremely
animated, she was in charming spirits; but she was apparently not at all
excited; she was not fluttered; she avoided neither his eyes nor those