ist here. So when you show yourself in public with Mr.
Giovanelli, and without your mother--"

"Gracious! poor Mother!" interposed Daisy.

"Though you may be flirting, Mr. Giovanelli is not; he means something
else."

"He isn't preaching, at any rate," said Daisy with vivacity. "And if you
want very much to know, we are neither of us flirting; we are too good
friends for that: we are very intimate friends."

"Ah!" rejoined Winterbourne, "if you are in love with each other, it is
another affair."

She had allowed him up to this point to talk so frankly that he had no
expectation of shocking her by this ejaculation; but she immediately got
up, blushing visibly, and leaving him to exclaim mentally that
little American flirts were the queerest creatures in the world. "Mr.
Giovanelli, at least," she said, giving her interlocutor a single
glance, "never says such very disagreeable things to me."

Winterbourne was bewildered; he stood, staring. Mr. Giovanelli had
finished singing. He left the piano and came over to Daisy. "Won't you
come into the other room and have some tea?" he asked, bending before
her with his ornamental smile.

Daisy turned to Winterbourne, beginning to smile again. He was still
more perplexed, for this inconsequent smile made nothing clear, though
it seemed to prove, indeed, that she had a sweetness and softness that
reverted instinctively to the pardon of offenses. "It has never occurred
to Mr. Winterbourne to offer me any tea," she said with her little
tormenting manner.

"I have offered you advice," Winterbourne rejoined.

"I prefer weak tea!" cried Daisy, and she went off with the brilliant
Giovanelli. She sat with him in the adjoining room, in the embrasure
of the window, for the rest of the evening. There was an interesting
performance at the piano, but neither of these young people gave heed
to it. When Daisy came to take leave of Mrs. Walker, this lady
conscientiously repaired the weakness of which she had been guilty at
the moment of the young girl's arrival. She turned her back straight
upon Miss Miller and left her to depart with what grace she might.
Winterbourne was standing near the door; he saw it all. Daisy turned
very pale and looked at her mother, but Mrs. Miller was humbly
unconscious of any violation of the usual social forms. She appeared,
indeed, to have felt an incongruous impulse to draw attention to her own
striking observance of them. "Good night, Mrs. Walker," she sa