“I’m looking for a new Italian writer,” she told him. “I know publishers in the States who’d be interested in having me translate someone new from Italy.”

“Morosini must have my books. I’ve sent them to him.”

“Oh, he gets hundreds of books for review—and then I’m the one who gives them away before he’s read them.” She said this lightly, to see if Bontelli would relax and smile. He didn’t. “What are your books like?”

“Very readable,” he said with directness. “Simple, immediate, and fast.” He spoke in spurts, as if talking impersonally into a telephone. “I’ll send you copies tomorrow.”

They were like two strangers sitting on the wood bench of a cold railroad station in the country, she thought. There was the same feeling of constraint. Not as though they were in an elegant room in Rome full of important men and beautiful women where bowls were filled with fragrant, old-fashioned cabbage roses as large as peonies. Soft, lush, and faintly decadent; overdone. But beautiful.

She wrote out for him the address of Angela’s place, where she had set up a little darkroom for her photos, and glanced around the room again. Irene was sitting nearby looking bemused and watching them, lulled by lots of drinking. Marguerite moved away from Bontelli toward Irene. “Don’t forget the books,” she said to him.

“I won’t forget,” he said and smiled. The smile lit up his whole face. He’s beautiful, she thought.

Platters of pasta were arriving on the buffet table, and guests were serving themselves and then moving out to little tables on the terrace among the potted lemon trees and oleander. Marguerite collected Louis and Irene and found them a table outside. Returning for Alberto, she saw Leone and Aurelia Eccli with Bontelli and went to greet them.

“Cara!” cried the handsome Aurelia expansively.

“Ciao, Margherita,” said the dapper Leone, a successful and sophisticated writer of Alberto’s age. “Do you know Massimo Bontelli?”

“We’ve just met. I’m going to read his books.”

“He’s a man of the future—you’ll see.”

“Future what?” laughed Aurelia.

Bontelli smiled in embarrassment, pleased at being praised and overcome with confusion at the same time. Marguerite felt like reaching to him and saying “Coraggio!”

So much for history. As strangers just meeting they hadn’t thrown off the sparks of an Anna and Vronsky. Yet, in that moment, if she had been asked, Marguerite would have said yes, she was sure, she was in love with Massimo Bontelli.