g was Capri, stretching
out from an azure sea. For the moment the guitars had ceased, but their
players, swarthy, velvet eyed, and unmistakable children of Italy, sat
at ease, their instruments still held in brown hands ready for further
plucking of the sonorous strings. And the room was alive with the uproar
of Italian voices talking their native language, with the large and
unselfconscious gestures of Italian hands, with the movement of Italian
heads, with the flash and sparkle of animated Italian eyes. Chianti was
being drunk; macaroni, minestra, gnocchi, ravioli, alaione were being
eaten; here and there Toscanas were being smoked. Italy was in the warm
air, and in an instant from Craven's consciousness London was blotted
out.

For a moment he stood just inside the door feeling almost confused.
Opposite to him was the padrona, a large and lustrous woman with sleepy,
ox-like eyes, sitting behind a sort of counter. Italian girls, with
coal-black hair, slipped deftly to and fro among the tables serving
the customers. The musicians stared at Craven with the fixed, unwinking
definiteness which the traveller from England begins to meet with soon
after he passes Lugano. Where was a table for an Englishman?

"Ecco, signorino!"

An Italian girl smiled and beckoned with a sort of intimate liveliness
and understanding that quite warmed Craven's heart. There was a table
free, just one, under Vesuvius erupting. Craven took it, quickly ordered
all the Italian dishes he could think of and a bottle of Chianti Rosso,
and then looked about the long, little room. He looked--to see Italian
faces, and he saw many; but suddenly, instead of merely looking, he
stared. His eyelids quivered; even his lips parted. Was it possible?
Yes, it was! At a table tucked into a corner by the window were sitting
Beryl Van Tuyn and actually--Santa Lucia!--Lady Sellingworth! And they
were both eating--what was it? Craven stretched his neck--they were both
eating Risotto alla Milanese!

At this moment the guitars struck up that most Neapolitan of songs, the
"Canzona di Mergellina," the smiling Italian girl popped a heaped-up
plate of macaroni blushing gently with tomato sauce before Craven, and
placed a straw bottle of ruby hued Chianti by the bit of bread at his
left hand, and Miss Van Tuyn turned her corn-coloured head to have a
good look at the room and, incidentally, to allow the room to have a
good look at her.

The violet eyes, full of conscious