“Oh, no, they’re from everywhere. America and England. One’s from Kenya.”

“You do this often?”

“No, only this time. It’s because of the fifty pounds, you see.”

“I’m sorry?” he inquired, emulating her.

“The currency restrictions. A private person can’t spend more than fifty pounds abroad this year. I was saving it for Italy, but then I used it up.”

“You went somewhere else?”

Her eyes went back to the grand duke. “Yes, to Paris for a week, in May. Unexpectedly.”

“Well, that was nice,” he said artfully. “Worth it.”

What a lot I now know about you, Miss Ingram. That you came into this piazza because of that statue, that you know nothing about art, you like poetry, you live in Islington, and you have a lover who is either poor or stingy, who has been in Paris and is now in Italy. Since he quoted to you this poem, the lover is married and intends to stay that way. To hell with him and his poem.

“An undistinguished work,” he suggested. “That statue. Unworthy of all this.”

“I like it,” she said serenely. “Because of the association, you see.”

Well, it’s frightening, Michele concluded, looking at her. Just when one thinks oneself most secret, one is most transparent.

About me, he went on to her, you might have noticed that I have bushy hair, speak English like a wop, wear a wedding ring, and carry a zippered brief case—might have noticed, that is, if you had taken the slightest interest. As things are, no one can reach you. In silence, he accused her: I have never seen anyone more in love in my life.

Her condition made her immune to any importunity, protected her as completely as if she had been carrying a child.

“Lucky to get you,” he said. “These girls.”

“They’re nice girls,” she said. “All they really want to do is go shopping,” she added, as though to give an idea of their virtues.

“It could be worse.”

She agreed. “I’m not much of a guide. I’m really an English teacher. I have to read up on it beforehand.”

“That makes it nice and fresh.”

It was delightful, the way she laughed with her whole face, exposing nice little teeth and quite a lot of her upper gum. “Look,” she said to him, “I’m going to sit down here till they come back.”