He had never yet heard a young girl express herself in just
this fashion; never, at least, save in cases where to say such
things seemed a kind of demonstrative evidence of a certain
laxity of deportment. And yet was he to accuse Miss Daisy Miller
of actual or potential inconduite, as they said at Geneva?
He felt that he had lived at Geneva so long that he had lost
a good deal; he had become dishabituated to the American tone.
Never, indeed, since he had grown old enough to appreciate things,
had he encountered a young American girl of so pronounced a type as this.
Certainly she was very charming, but how deucedly sociable!
Was she simply a pretty girl from New York State? Were they all
like that, the pretty girls who had a good deal of gentlemen's society?
Or was she also a designing, an audacious, an unscrupulous young person?
Winterbourne had lost his instinct in this matter, and his reason
could not help him. Miss Daisy Miller looked extremely innocent.
Some people had told him that, after all, American girls
were exceedingly innocent; and others had told him that,
after all, they were not. He was inclined to think Miss Daisy
Miller was a flirt--a pretty American flirt. He had never,
as yet, had any relations with young ladies of this category.
He had known, here in Europe, two or three women--persons older
than Miss Daisy Miller, and provided, for respectability's sake,
with husbands--who were great coquettes--dangerous, terrible women,
with whom one's relations were liable to take a serious turn.
But this young girl was not a coquette in that sense; she was
very unsophisticated; she was only a pretty American flirt.
Winterbourne was almost grateful for having found the formula
that applied to Miss Daisy Miller. He leaned back in his seat;
he remarked to himself that she had the most charming nose
he had ever seen; he wondered what were the regular conditions