“Dr. Vecchio, I have to ask for the manuscript now. The reading room is closing in fifteen minutes.”

He blinked. “Oh…yes, if I could finish this last character set?”

“Of course.” She waited for him, and Giovanni smiled politely as he closed the manuscript, repacked it, and put the lid on the box.

The girl took the book back to the locked stacks to put it away in the dim room where it was housed. As she locked up the stacks room, she turned back to see Giovanni putting his pencils and notes away in his leather messenger bag.

“Well-”

“Why don’t you like the name Beatrice?” he asked, looking down as he fastened the brass buckle of his bag.

“Excuse me?”

He looked up at her, dark hair falling into his eyes again.

“It’s a lovely name. Why do you prefer to be called by your initial?”

“It’s…old. My name-it sounds like an old woman to me.”

He smiled enigmatically. “Yet, you work around old things all the time.”

“I guess I do.”

He leaned his hip against the sturdy wooden table.

“She was Dante’s muse, you know.”

“Of course I know. That’s why I have the stupid name to begin with. My dad was a Dante scholar.” Beatrice looked down to straighten her own papers on the desk. “Kind of a fanatic, really.”

He cocked his head and studied her. “Oh? Does he teach here?”

She paused and shook her head. “No, he died ten years ago. In Italy.”

His eyes darted back to the table, and he pulled the strap of his bag over his head as some faint memory tickled the back of his mind.

“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. Forgive my curiosity.”

She frowned. “I’m not going to start weeping or anything, if you’re worried about that. It was a long time ago.”