"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. "Nan, do you see the girl who's playing the violin?" whispered Wenny. "That's the girl I meant. She's lovely, isn't she?" "Wenny, you are seeing things through the Orvieto, but she is beautiful." "It's her lips and chin that are rather like yours." "Musician's lips," said Fanshaw a little pompously. "Do you like those little snippets of veal, Nan? I don't. Too much garlic. We'll taste it for a week." "Why it's fine," cried Wenny uproariously. "It'll put hair on your chest." "I wonder," Nan was speaking slowly, "I wonder if that could be the girl Fitzie was telling me about. I rather think Fitzie said she looked like that." "Who?" "The violinist ... Must be a month ago I met Fitzie one day all excited about something. Poor Fitzie does take life so hard. She told me a long cock and bull story that ended by impressing me a great deal about a girl in the Fadettes ..." At the mention of the Fadettes, Wenny laughed himself red in the face. "Children should be seen and not heard, Wenny," went on Nan in an even amused voice. "About a girl in the Fadettes who eloped with an Italian boy and how his wife went round to the theatre dragging a lot of squalling brats and made a fearful scene. Fitzie couldn't understand how anyone could wreck their chances of a career like that. It would be wonderful if this were the girl." "What would you have done?" asked Wenny eagerly leaning over the table. "If I had been the girl? How can I know? I wonder sometimes if just the wanting so hard to succeed wouldn't make you throw the whole thing away in one mad moment. It's hard to explain."