THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
measured the long reach of the Square. "They're still in their shop. They're safe for half-an-hour."
"That shows then, that shows!" said Kate.
This colloquy had taken place in the middle of Piazza San Marco, always, as a great social saloon, a smooth-floored, blue-roofed chamber of amenity, favourable to talk; or rather, to be exact, not in the middle, but at the point where our pair had paused by a common impulse after leaving the great mosque-like church. It rose now, domed and pinnacled, but a little way behind them, and they had in front the vast empty space, enclosed by its arcades, to which at that hour movement and traffic were mostly confined. Venice was at breakfast, the Venice of the visitor and the possible acquaintance, and, except for the parties of importunate pigeons picking up the crumbs of perpetual feasts, their prospect was clear and they could see their companions had not yet been, and were not for a while longer likely to be, disgorged by the laceshop, in one of the loggie, where, shortly before, they had left them for a look-in—the expression was artfully Densher's—at St. Mark. Their morning had happened to take such a turn as brought this chance to the surface; yet his allusion, just made to Kate, had not been an overstatement of their general opportunity. The worst that could be said of their general opportunity was that it was essentially in presence—in presence of everyone; everyone consisting at this juncture, in a peopled world, of Susan
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