Peggy scrubbed Illuminato's bullet head dry with her handkerchief (it had
been lying in his minestra bowl), slapped him lightly on the hands, and
said absently, "Don't worry poor Daddy, who's so tired." She was wishing
that the _risotto_ had been boiled a little; one gathered from the
hardness of the rice that that process had been omitted. Vyvian, who
was talking shop with Hilary, sighed deeply and laid down his fork. He
wondered why he ever came in to lunch. One could get a much better one
nearly as cheap at a restaurant.

Miss Barnett, with an air of wishing to find out how bad a fool Peter
was, leaned across Mrs. Johnson and said, "What are you to Venice, Mr.
Margerison, and Venice to you? What, I mean, are you going to get out
of her? Which of her aspects do you especially approach? She has so
infinitely many, you know. What, in fact, is your connecting link?" She
waited with some interest for what Peter would say. She had not yet
"placed" him.

Peter said, "Oh, well ... I look at things, you know ... much the same
as anyone else, I expect. And I go in gondolas; and then there are the
things one would like to buy."

Mrs. Johnson approved this. "Lovely, ain't they! Only one never has the
money to spend."

"I watch other people spending theirs," said Peter, "which is the next
best thing, I suppose ... I'm sorry I'm stupid, Miss Barnett--but it's
all so jolly that I don't like to be invidious."

"Do you write?" she enquired.