On the third day Angelo knocked and brought in the tray Miles had been sending back with the cook, untouched. He balanced the tray on his severed wrist, and sat down on the edge of the bed to set it across Miles’s lap. Miles studied the man through his feverish haze. Angelo’s eyebrows were almost nonexistent. His nose was strangely small, and his upper lip withdrawn. His face was not evenly matched on both sides, but that was true of many people; the right eye was set higher, but both eyes were amber-colored and serious. His hair was cut short, and he was clean-shaven.

“You have to eat,” Angelo said.

“I’m not hungry,” Miles said.

“You die if you don’t eat.”

“I’m sick.”

Angelo looked at him, and Miles didn’t think he had ever been looked at so directly. The fever and the closeness of the man made Miles reckless.

“Why haven’t you poisoned me?” he asked.

Angelo looked surprised. “You won’t eat,” he said. “How can I poison you?”

“I wish you would,” Miles said, and he closed his eyes, embarrassed.

“They killed the English girl,” Angelo said.

It was a diagnosis, not a statement of fact. Miles said nothing.

“If I can say it,” Angelo said, “you should get out of bed.” He left the room, closing the door with his good hand.

Miles looked at his food. Soft-boiled eggs, a bowl of soup, cold juice. He drank the juice and it cooled him. Angelo was right: it was time to get out of bed, to go back to his job, to smoothing over differences and making arrangements. There was nothing else he was good for. He was ravenous, and began to eat.

“So, was he poisoned?” the Englishman asked. A boat with a red light raced by on the sea. The coffee cups were gone, and we sat with the empty table at our knees. The au pairs at the nearest house were having a party, and their voices carried through the dark, Danish and lilting.

“Of course not,” Eugénie said. “He was here with me a week ago.”

“And Angelo?”

“You sound like Christopher,” Eugénie said. “Miles would never fire him.”

A breeze came up, and Eugénie gathered her white wrap. The servants had long said good night, and all but the terrace doors were shuttered in case rain came before morning. The white cushions, except the ones we sat on, had been taken in.

“How can Miles stay there?” the young Frenchman asked.

“How can he leave?” I asked.

They all looked at me.

Eugénie stood. “Good night, my dears.” Her shoes were like high-heeled doll sandals beneath her, and she tottered a few steps across the stone before finding her grace again. “Bonsoir. I’m going to bed.” She waved over her shoulder with the corner of her wrap in her hand.