and
to do that; she was constantly "chaffing" and abusing him. She appeared
completely to have forgotten that Winterbourne had said anything to
displease her at Mrs. Walker's little party. One Sunday afternoon,
having gone to St. Peter's with his aunt, Winterbourne perceived
Daisy strolling about the great church in company with the inevitable
Giovanelli. Presently he pointed out the young girl and her cavalier to
Mrs. Costello. This lady looked at them a moment through her eyeglass,
and then she said:

"That's what makes you so pensive in these days, eh?"

"I had not the least idea I was pensive," said the young man.

"You are very much preoccupied; you are thinking of something."

"And what is it," he asked, "that you accuse me of thinking of?"

"Of that young lady's--Miss Baker's, Miss Chandler's--what's her
name?--Miss Miller's intrigue with that little barber's block."

"Do you call it an intrigue," Winterbourne asked--"an affair that goes
on with such peculiar publicity?"

"That's their folly," said Mrs. Costello; "it's not their merit."

"No," rejoined Winterbourne, with something of that pensiveness to which
his aunt had alluded. "I don't believe that there is anything to be
called an intrigue."

"I have heard a dozen people speak of it; they say she is quite carried
away by him."

"They are certainly very intimate," said Winterbourne.

Mrs. Costello inspected the young couple again with her optical
instrument. "He is very handsome. One easily sees how it is. She thinks
him the most elegant man in the world, the finest gentleman. She has
never seen anything like him; he is better, even, than the courier.
It was the courier probably who introduced him; and if he succeeds in
marrying the young lady, the courier will come in for a magnificent
commission."

"I don't believe she thinks of marrying him," said Winterbourne, "and I
don't believe he hopes to marry her."

"You may be very sure she thinks of nothing. She goes on from day to
day, from hour to hour, as they did in the Golden Age. I can imagine
nothing more vulgar. And at the same time," added Mrs. Costello, "depend
upon it that she may tell you any moment that she is 'engaged.'"

"I think that is more than Giovanelli expects," said Winterbourne.

"Who is Giovanelli?"

"The little Italian. I have asked questions about him and learned
something. He is apparently a perfectly respectable little man. I
believe he is, in a small way, a cavalier