Giancarlo grinned at him and gave a little laugh.

“You know,” he said, “you have done very well with your study of the language, but someday you really must make a more serious study of Italian literature.”

“Well,” Carter kidded him, “like you said in the beginning, right now I’m more interested in studying an Italian woman.”

At that Giancarlo chuckled again, but then his grin suddenly faded away, and he stared into his glass for a time before looking up at Carter with dark, sober eyes.

“Let me give you a little advice, my friend,” he said in a deadly serious voice, “for I know a little bit about the women of my country. I know, for instance, how with just one look an Italian woman can shatter a man into a million pieces. I also know that if she’s a good woman and she truly cares for him, she will put him back together way better than he ever was at the beginning. But if she doesn’t, watch out, because then she’ll leave him for dead without so much as a second thought. So be careful.”

Despite this ominous pronouncement on his teacher’s part, Carter could not suppress a smile.

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re trying to talk me out of it?” he said, laughing.

“Hmm,” grunted Giancarlo. “Would it matter if I were?”

Had his teacher posed that same question just a few weeks earlier, perhaps then Carter might have wavered, for even he had to admit that at times, as the summer had worn on, his vision of Elena had been like a candle in the wind. There were times when the flame burned so low that it seemed to him all but extinguished. Inevitably, though, whenever he began to despair that it was on the point of dying, it would suddenly flicker back to life, just as it had done in the last few days. Now, with so little time left before he flew to Italy, it glowed more steadily and brighter than ever.

“No,” said Carter at last. “Not in a million years.” Though he said it with a smile, he meant it with all his being. “Does that surprise you?”

“No, not really,” said Giancarlo, his face brightening. “I was once a young man, too, you know, so I understand these things a little better than you might think. But enough of this subject.You have a lesson to complete.” With that he picked up his pencil and tapped it against the pad.“Va bene,” he began. “Parliamo in Italiano!”