“Mr. Rey, that letter wasn’t from me. And I have no idea what it said.”

With a coquettish glance Rey reached into the inner pocket of his suit, and removed a folded and much-frayed paper, which he placed beside Daniel’s coffee cup. “In that case, perhaps you’d like to read what it says.”

He hesitated.

“Or do you know it by heart?”

“I’ll read it, I’ll read it.”

Marcella’s letter was written on scented, floral-bordered notepaper in a schoolgirlish script embellished with a few cautious curlicues meant for calligraphy. Its message aspired to the grand manner in much the same way. “To my most dear Ernesto,” it began. “I love you! What more can I say? I realize that love is not possible between two beings so different as you and I. I am but a plain, homely girl, and even if I were as beautiful in reality as I am in my daydreams I don’t suppose that would make much difference. There would still be a Gulf between us. Why do I write, if it is useless to declare my love? To thank you for the priceless gift of your music! Listening to your godlike voice has given me the most important, the sublimest moments of my life. I live for music, and what music is there that can equal yours? I love you — it always comes back to those three little words, which mean so much. I… love… you!” It was signed, “A worshipper from afar.”

“You think I wrote this glop?” Daniel asked, having read it through.

“Can you look me in the eye and deny it?”

“Of course I deny it! I didn’t write it! It was written by Marcella Levine, who is just what she says, a plain homely girl with a thing for opera singers.”

“A plain homely girl,” Rey repeated with a knowing smile.

“It’s the truth.”

“Oh, I appreciate that. It’s my truth too, the truth of my Norma. But it’s rare for a young man of your nature to understand such riddles so clearly. I think you really may have the makings of an artist in you.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake. What would I be doing—” He stopped short, on the verge of an irretrievable slight. It wouldn’t do to declare that no one in his right mind would write mash notes to a eunuch, when Rey evidently took such attentions for granted.

“Yes?” Rey folded the note and replaced it, next to his heart.

“Listen, what if I introduced you to the girl who wrote the note? Would that satisfy you?”

“I am curious, certainly.”

“She has a Tuesday subscription, and you’re singing next Tuesday, aren’t you?”

“Sono Eurydice,” he said, in melting tones.

“Then if you like, I’ll take you to her between the acts.”

“But you mustn’t prepare her!”

“It’s a promise. If I did, she might get cold feet and not show up.”

“Tuesday, then. And shall we come here again after, for a bite?”

“Sure. The three of us.”

“That assumes, caro, that there are three of us.”

“Just wait. You’ll see.”

On Tuesday, at the intermission, Rey appeared in the lower lobby of the Metastasio, already decked out in the costume of Eurydice and seeming, even close up and without the lights assisting, a very sylph, all tulle and moonlight — albeit a sylph of the court rather more than of the country, with enough paste jewels to have equipped a small chandelier and enough powder on his face and wig to have sunk a thousand ships. Being so majestical, he moved with the freedom of a queen, parting the crowds before him as effectively as a cordon of police. He commandeered Daniel from his post at the orange juice stand, and together they mounted the grand staircase to the Grand Tier level, and then (to everyone’s wonder) went up the much less grand staircase to the balcony, where, as Daniel had been certain they would, they found Marcella at the edge of a group of the faithful. Seeing Daniel and Rey advancing upon her, she stiffened into a defensive posture, shoulders braced and neck retracted.

They stopped before her. The group at whose edge Marcella had been standing now re-formed with her and her visitors at its center.

“Marcella,” Daniel said, in a manner meant to assuage, “I’d like you to meet Ernesto Rey. Ernesto, may I present Marcella Levine.”

Marcella dipped her head slowly in acknowledgement.

Rey offered his slender hand, dazzling with false diamonds. Marcella, who was sensitive on the subject of hands, backed away, pressing knotted fists into the brown velvetine folds of her dress.

“Daniel tells me, my dear, that it is to you that I am beholden for a letter I lately received.” You could almost hear the clavier underlining his recitativo, so ripe was his delivery.

“Pardon me?” It was all she could manage.

“Daniel tells me, my dear, that it is to you that I am beholden for a letter I lately received.” His reading of the line did not vary in any particular, nor could you tell, from his regal inflections, whether this statement portended thanks or reproof.

“A letter? I don’t understand.”

“Did you, or did you not, give this charming young man a letter for me, enclosed in a box of chocolates?”

“No,” she shook her head emphatically, “I never.”

“Because,” Rey went on, addressing the entire crowd that had gathered about them, “if it was your letter…”

The long blonde braid wagged wildly in denial.

“… I only wanted to say what a very kind, and warm, and wonderful letter it was, and to thank you for it, personally. But you tell me that you didn’t send it!”

“No! No, the usher must have… confused me with someone else.”

“Yes, that’s what he must have done. Well, my dear, it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Marcella bowed her head, as though to the block.

“I hope you enjoy the second act.”

There was an approving murmur from all the onlookers.

“And now you must all excuse me. I have my entrance to make! Ben, my little trickster, I shall see you at eleven.” With which he spun round in a billow of tulle and made his way, royally, down the stairs.

Daniel had changed out of his uniform into a ragtag sweater and a pair of jeans and would not have been allowed into Evviva il Coltello if he hadn’t been accompanying the great Ernesto. Then, to compound the offense, he told the waiter he wasn’t hungry and wanted nothing more than a glass of mineral water.

“You really should take better care of yourself, caro,” Rey insisted, while the waiter still hovered in the background.

“You know it was her,” Daniel said, in a furious whisper, resuming their conversation from the street.

“In fact, I know it wasn’t.”

“You terrified her. That’s why she denied it.”

“Ah, but you see I was looking at her eyes. A person’s eyes always tell the truth. It’s as good as a lie detector test.”

“Then look at mine and tell me if I’m lying.”

“I’ve been looking for weeks now — and they are, all the time.”

Daniel replied with a subdued Bronx cheer.

They sat in silence, Daniel glowering, Rey complacently amused, until the waiter came with wine and mineral water. Rey tasted, and approved, the wine.

When the waiter was out of earshot, Daniel asked: “Why? If you think I wrote that letter, why would I go on denying it?”

“As Zerlina says: ‘Vorrei e non vorrei.’ She’d like to, but she also wouldn’t like to. Or as someone else says, I forget who exactly: ‘T’amo e tremo.’ And I can understand that. Indeed, with the baleful example of your friend before you, Bladebridge’s innamorata, I can sympathize with your hesitations, even now.”

“Mr. Rey, I’m not hesitating. I’m refusing.”

“As you like. But you should consider that the longer you resist, the harder the terms of surrender. It’s true of all sieges.”

“Can I go now?”

“You will leave when I do. I don’t intend to be made a public mockery. You will dine with me whenever I ask you to, and you will display your usual high spirits when you do so.” As an object lesson Rey splashed wine into Daniel’s glass until it had brimmed over unto the tablecloth. “Because,” he went on, in his throatiest contralto, “if you do not, I shall see to it that you have no job and no apartment.”