“Shall I cry, amico?” Importuna said. “You’re beginning to bore me. You’d sell her to an Arab if you could and there were enough money in it. Yes, I was born on September 9th, 1899, so I’ll be 63 next month, and Virginia is 21, making me exactly three times her age, as you say. It would be a perfect day for a marriage; the numbers are very good, perfetto.”

“But three times… “

“I said no more!” Importuna shouted.

The tall man was startled. “All right, Nino,” he said, “all right.”

Importuna subsided, muttering in Italian. Finally he looked up. “Don’t stand in the way of this. I want her. You understand? You can point out to her what she gets by marrying me. I give my promise, on my mother’s memory, that she will have anything and everything she asks for. I offer her villas, chateaux, palaces-you know my properties. A private yacht, one of the biggest; bigger than Onassis’s, than Niarchos’s. A jet of her own. Jewels-by the pound, if she likes. Clothes designed just for her by any or all of the great designers. Anything. Everything.”

“Everything but a young husband in her bed,” the tall man said. He did not quite know why he said it. He regretted the taunt immediately. A kind of boiling began to take place in the depths of the coffee-colored eyes. But then the hands, which had tightened about the dagger, relaxed and went Diirer again.

“Is that so much to give up,” Importuna asked icily, “when she gets so much? Spare me the fatherly sentiment, amico. I know you for what you are.”

Maybe you do and maybe you don’t, the tall man said silently. Aloud he said, “Then that’s the deal?” When Importuna shook his head the tall man said, “There’s more to it, of course.”

“Si davvero, caro mio. There will be a before-marriage paper-an agreement which Virginia will sign.”