They walk up the elaborate marble staircase, through the doors flanked by Corinthian columns, not even stopping to buy a ticket. He’s told her the collection is undistinguished, not worth the steep admission price. “You don’t come to Rome for museums,” he tells her. “There are only one or two that are really world class.”They’re more dressed up than they’ve been since their first night at Valerie’s. She’s wearing a black silk pantsuit; underneath the jacket, a silky jade-colored shirt. He wonders if the shirt is sleeveless. He thinks of his memories of her arms: freckled, lightly muscled.In all the time they’ve been together, all these days in Rome, he hasn’t seen her legs. She wears long skirts or pants. Her legs were always a vexation to her; he had found them beautiful, arousing. Worried that he knows she’s thinking in this way, he doesn’t compliment her on her outfit, as he’d thought of doing, before his imagination took off in a direction that causes him unease.She’s reserved a table outdoors, on the veranda.
