SO MAYBE THAT WAS why Iris climbed laboriously down all those stairs and hobbled with her crutches and her plaster cast to the Vespri Siciliani to meet Sasha Digby for coffee. To Sasha, she wasn’t poor little Iris. She was dolce Iris. Yesterday evening, he’d looked at Ruth as if she were loathsome, and he’d turned to Iris and kissed her hand. Iris would have hobbled ten miles to meet Sasha Digby for coffee, but luckily he chose the café with consideration for her injuries, and she only had to hobble a couple of hundred yards before she arrived there at ten minutes past eleven, a little breathless.

Sasha rushed out from beneath the awning to help her with her crutches. He almost carried her to her seat. He called the waiter and ordered her a cappuccino and a piece of olive oil cake, specialty of the house, and he beamed at her.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come. I thought it was too much trouble.”

“Of course not. I need a little fresh air.”

“Then I was worried about all those stairs.”

“Ruth helped me.”

“Oh, of course.” The smile drooped a little. “Did you tell her where you were going?”

Iris hesitated for an instant before she decided that she would never lie to this man, ever. “No,” she said firmly.

“Why not?”

“Because she thinks she should protect me, for some reason.”

The smile ratcheted back up. “I can’t imagine why.”

“I’m not as innocent as I look, you know. I’ve read Balzac.”

“I know. I saw you in the museum, remember?” He leaned forward. “Let them think what they want, I say. Let them underestimate you.”

Before Iris could come up with anything to reply to that, the waiter arrived with the coffee and the cake. Sasha asked did she mind if he smoked. She said of course not.

“But you don’t smoke, do you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I never wanted to.” The cappuccino was almost too hot to sip, but Iris tasted it anyway. It was so much easier to pay attention to coffee than to Sasha. He was so big and electric! And they were sitting so close! This was nothing like sitting together in the hospital. This was like a man and a woman who were interested in each other, meeting for coffee to find out just how interested they really were. Sasha’s long legs stretched out past the opposite edge of the round table. His shoulder nearly touched hers. He wore a conservative suit of navy blue, probably the same one he’d worn at the Villa Borghese. His big, bony fingers struck the match and lit the cigarette that stuck from his mouth.

Iris liked the shape of his hand and the smell of strong Italian coffee and the proximity of his leg to hers. She loved his eyes, even though she wasn’t looking at them.