Massimo was to call her the next day at six. But at ten to six Marguerite could stand it no longer; her home was full of intruding presences—Tina ironing in the hall, Alberto in the studio dictating to his secretary, Russo the gardener fixing the vines on the terrace. One telephone was in the studio, the other in the hall where all could hear her. There was no place to be private and get his call in that house.

She dressed quickly, and went out: “I’m going to the library.” She ran in the heat to the nearest bar.

“Marguerite! I was just about to call—where are you?”

“In some bar. Listen, Massimo, can you leave the office for a moment and meet me at Greco’s. I can’t talk at home with all those people around, or in this bar.”

She stopped off at the American library to pick up a book, any book, and it was filled with people watching television sets in the darkened room. “What’s happening?” she asked the librarian who stamped the date on her book.

“Why, it’s the moon launching,” said the other tersely, disapproving of her not being informed of such an American primacy.

Marguerite left the darkened room of spectators and thought, It’s like a bivouac. People were sitting around eating bananas, smoking, and talking, and the librarians were circulating among them emptying ashtrays full of butts and lemon peels and regulating the TV sets.

Outside the sun was strong, and she was hot and strained by the time she got near Greco’s. She felt a touch on her arm and turned: Massimo. Beautiful. In his beige linen suit and dark brown shirt, no tie, he was smiling. “You said could I come down for a moment—it’s impossible to get away, but I came anyway.”

He led the way to the back and ordered two granite di limone. She studied him; he sat at his usual distance from her. He never, in any physical way, did anything to close the space between them. Yet she couldn’t mistake the warmth and excitement in his voice when the sound of it came to her through the noise of some crowded bar from where she telephoned.

“What I don’t understand,” she said abruptly, “is how and why we’re meeting.”

He looked at her several moments before answering, “Listen, Marguerite,” he said patiently, deliberately. “We’ve both had stories in the past from which we’ve suffered. Now I am studying to see where this could lead. To see what can come out of this as we begin to know each other better.”