What the hell, I thought. I stroked her hair and patted her shoulder. She was crying.

“You will, won’t you?” She looked up at me. “Because we’re going to have a strange life.”

After a while I walked with her to the door of the villa and she went in and I walked home. Back at the villa I went upstairs to the room. Rinaldi was lying on his bed. He looked at me.

“So you make progress with Miss Barkley?”

“We are friends.”

“You have that pleasant air of a dog in heat.”

I did not understand the word.

“Of a what?”

He explained.

“You,” I said, “have that pleasant air of a dog who⁠—”