“It’s a pleasure to have you here, signorina. I’m Count Rivolonovo, and I’m afraid there’s not much in the way of books in this part of Italy, even at the hotel, but allow me to open my own library to you. I live in the tower at Punto Moresco, not far from here. Why don’t you and your friend come to dinner tonight? Just an informal gathering, alfresco. And then you can choose a book for yourself—English, Italian, or whatever.”

“We don’t really have anything to wear to a dinner party,” Tina said, stuttering somewhat, both pleased and self-conscious at the count’s attention to her. “We’re not even staying at the hotel, we’re at Signor Agostini’s place.”

“You’re perfect as you are, both of you. I’ll have my driver pick you up at eight-thirty tonight.”

The drive down to the point was through an old grove of olive trees, which then mixed with a strand of feathery pines and oaks as they approached the watchtower on a spur of rocky cliff above the sea.

The count greeted them in the grove, which had once belonged to a farmhouse that was now a gatehouse guarding the access to his preserve. In a cleared area, a greenhouse was spotlighted, displaying rich exotic blooms and serving as backdrop for a bar that had been built around a twisted olive tree. In the distance Tina and Jason could see the crenellated heights of the tower, which loomed in its impressive bulk against the somewhat opaque evening sky.

“Here is where we will have drinks,” the count said as he greeted them.

It was an uncertain evening; there was what the Italians call foschia in the summer air: a kind of oppressiveness, not yet mist but heavy and dampish, a warning.

Jason and Tina were presented to the other guests—Tina as the daughter of the author Alberto Morosini and Jason as the son of an American diplomat in Rome. “If we aren’t worth knowing in our right, at last we have the right connections,” Jason muttered to her sarcastically.

Tina, as usual on such occasions, was a mixture of envy and scorn. Envy at the beautiful lives and poise of these people; scorn that they didn’t know (how could they?) what she did.

The count was fussing. “I’m very nervous about whether we should dine out tonight, after all, or go into the tower. What do you say, will it rain? Oh, well, let’s risk it for now.”

A man in a handsome beige linen suit with a deep blue shirt and burnt-orange tie, who had been noticing Tina since her arrival, was now making his way toward them. He was tall and well-built with a full, smooth face and eyes that were rather protuberant and probing. His hair was thinning.