After that first burst of laughter Cynthia had managed to get control of herself, but she wasn’t sure how long this would last. She must get somewhere, anywhere, and have it all out with Chick. Meekly she took his arm, let him lead her along the quay, through small streets toward the Piazza San Marco. She glanced upward. Chick was being very masculine, very stern, one might almost think, unforgiving. In silence they traversed the small streets. Well, if Chick was going to be stuffy! ... But he couldn’t be, he simply couldn’t be. And whose beastly old bundle was it anyway? _She_ didn’t go about leaving things in gondolas. Florio’s, on the Piazza San Marco. A small green iron table, two small twisted iron chairs and an attentive waiter in a white apron. Chick’s eyes consulted Cynthia, then ordered two lemonades. They came. In silence Cynthia sipped hers, bit her lips, gulped and regarded fixedly a stupid, pink toed pigeon who was strutting, with puffed out chest before the lovely little faun colored lady of his choice. Sideways out of her eyes Cynthia caught a glimpse of Chick, then turned to face him. His face was red but in his eyes was now a glimmer of understanding, one might almost say mirth. Cynthia dared a slight, tremulous giggle, forerunner of the gale to come. Then. ... “Oh Chick, Chick, if you could have seen yourself with that silly rooster. ... And the cabbage ... and Tweedledum ...!” The tide had risen now, all bars were down. Rocking with mirth they clung to the little iron chairs and laughed and laughed. A moment’s pause to recount the pomposity of the attendant, the old woman with the cabbage, the galosh, the list of things in that storeroom. Did you see the bicycle? ... Who could have left those high, buttoned shoes? ... Oh, and the fans, simply stacks of them! For ten minutes the gale raged backwards and forwards then, weak and helpless Cynthia begged for another lemonade, wiped the tears from her eyes and subsided into comparative sanity. Their laughter together had relieved her in many ways. It was going to be all right now, she and Chick still thought alike, could still find amusement in the same things, and the doubts of the morning were all swept away. “But Chick,” doggedly she returned to the old question. “Now it’s all over, you can tell me, can’t you? What was in that package?” Chick wasn’t going to be stuffy about it any more. He grinned this time, but shook his head. “If we don’t find it today I’ll really tell you. Not yet, though.” “Cross your heart?” “Cross my heart!” From the corner of the square a big bell began a slow solemn booming and as though it was a signal, hundreds, thousands of pigeons rose against the deep blue of the Venetian sky and the sunlit columns opposite. Glinting silvery, iridescent, dark blue and rose and gold they whirled with the muffled beat and roar of a thousand wings. Cynthia gazed enthralled.