The lint from the napkin came off on Fanshaw's blue serge suit. What a mess. Mechanically he started wiping off the knife and fork when the waiter set them down before him.
"Like in Europe," he said aloud. "You must forgive me Wenny, but I am suspicious of this famous restaurant of yours."
"And just looked there a fiasco just like in Italy," cried Nan, "Why this is wonderful."
"Genuine Orvieto, Miss," said the waiter solemnly.
"And look at the gondola ... Fanshaw, do get over being cross and look at the gondola at the foot of the stairs, with a lantern in it too."
"That's for the orchestra. They'll be here in a minute, a ladies' three-piece band as I heard a man call them one night. One of them's awfully good looking."
Fanshaw looked about the room. At another table a man and a woman were eating intently. They had sallow, puffy faces and looked into each other's eyes as they stuffed their mouths with spaghetti; depraved-looking thought Fanshaw. Probably Byron had been like that, a puffyfaced man, signs of dissipation. If it hadn't been for drink and women ... Why couldn't people be beautiful about life?
"Here they come," cried Nan and Wenny at the same moment.
Three women in white were behind the gondola prow tuning up their instruments. All at once with a nervous rush they started strumming away at O Sole Mio, with piano, 'cello and violin.
In the back of Fanshaw's mind were pictures of how he would have lived if he had had as much money as Lord Byron; a palazzo in Venice exquisitely hung with faded silk brocades, bedrooms with old rose and dull gold upholstery, and everything according to period, no jarring note, a villa on Fiesole hill, smothered in flowers with in the distance the russet roofs of Florence and the great dome.