said Winterbourne. "You should
sometimes listen to a gentleman--the right one."

Daisy began to laugh again. "I do nothing but listen to gentlemen!" she
exclaimed. "Tell me if Mr. Giovanelli is the right one?"

The gentleman with the nosegay in his bosom had now perceived our two
friends, and was approaching the young girl with obsequious rapidity.
He bowed to Winterbourne as well as to the latter's companion; he had
a brilliant smile, an intelligent eye; Winterbourne thought him not a
bad-looking fellow. But he nevertheless said to Daisy, "No, he's not the
right one."

Daisy evidently had a natural talent for performing introductions; she
mentioned the name of each of her companions to the other. She strolled
alone with one of them on each side of her; Mr. Giovanelli, who spoke
English very cleverly--Winterbourne afterward learned that he had
practiced the idiom upon a great many American heiresses--addressed her
a great deal of very polite nonsense; he was extremely urbane, and the
young American, who said nothing, reflected upon that profundity of
Italian cleverness which enables people to appear more gracious in
proportion as they are more acutely disappointed. Giovanelli, of course,
had counted upon something more intimate; he had not bargained for
a party of three. But he kept his temper in a manner which suggested
far-stretching intentions. Winterbourne flattered himself that he had
taken his measure. "He is not a gentleman," said the young American;
"he is only a clever imitation of one. He is a music master, or a
penny-a-liner, or a third-rate artist. D__n his good looks!" Mr.
Giovanelli had certainly a very pretty face; but Winterbourne felt a
superior indignation at his own lovely fellow countrywoman's not knowing
the difference between a spurious gentleman and a real one. Giovanelli
chattered and jested and made himself wonderfully agreeable. It was
true that, if he was an imitation, the imitation was brilliant.
"Nevertheless," Winterbourne said to himself, "a nice girl ought to
know!" And then he came back to the question whether this was, in fact,
a nice girl. Would a nice girl, even allowing for her being a little
American flirt, make a rendezvous with a presumably low-lived foreigner?
The rendezvous in this case, indeed, had been in broad daylight and in
the most crowded corner of Rome, but was it not impossible to regard the
choice of these circumstances as a proof of extreme cynicism? Singular
thou