Mrs. Walker sat looking after her, and there were tears in Mrs. Walker’s eyes.  “Get in here, sir,” she said to Winterbourne, indicating the place beside her.  The young man answered that he felt bound to accompany Miss Miller, whereupon Mrs. Walker declared that if he refused her this favor she would never speak to him again.  She was evidently in earnest.  Winterbourne overtook Daisy and her companion, and, offering the young girl his hand, told her that Mrs. Walker had made an imperious claim upon his society.  He expected that in answer she would say something rather free, something to commit herself still further to that “recklessness” from which Mrs. Walker had so charitably endeavored to dissuade her.  But she only shook his hand, hardly looking at him, while Mr. Giovanelli bade him farewell with a too emphatic flourish of the hat.

Winterbourne was not in the best possible humor as he took his seat in Mrs. Walker’s victoria.  “That was not clever of you,” he said candidly, while the vehicle mingled again with the throng of carriages.

“In such a case,” his companion answered, “I don’t wish to be clever; I wish to be earnest!”

“Well, your earnestness has only offended her and put her off.”

“It has happened very well,” said Mrs. Walker.  “If she is so perfectly determined to compromise herself, the sooner one knows it the better; one can act accordingly.”

“I suspect she meant no harm,” Winterbourne rejoined.

“So I thought a month ago.  But she has been going too far.”

“What has she been doing?”

“Everything that is not done here.  Flirting with any man she could pick up; sitting in corners with mysterious Italians; dancing all the evening with the same partners; receiving visits at eleven o’clock at night.  Her mother goes away when visitors come.”

“But her brother,” said Winterbourne, laughing, “sits up till midnight.”

“He must be edified by what he sees.  I’m told that at their hotel everyone is talking about her, and that a smile goes round among all the servants when a gentleman comes and asks for Miss Miller.”

“The servants be hanged!” said Winterbourne angrily.  “The poor girl’s only fault,” he presently added, “is that she is very uncultivated.”

“She is naturally indelicate,” Mrs. Walker declared.

“Take that example this morning.  How long had you known her at Vevey?”

“A couple of days.”

“Fancy, then, her making it a personal matter that you should have left the place!”

Winterbourne was silent for some moments; then he said, “I suspect, Mrs. Walker, that you and I have lived too long at Geneva!” And he added a request that she should inform him with what particular design she had made him enter her carriage.

“I wished to beg you to cease your relations with Miss Miller—­ not to flirt with her—­to give her no further opportunity to expose herself—­to let her alone, in short.”