As she entered the glass room Señora Beringer looked up from her lunch and raised an eyebrow. "I scarcely recognized you, child! It seems that you somehow remained fresh and unspoiled beneath the false citified exterior you have come to show on that delicate face. Although you do have a . . . a wounded look about you. Well, don't just stand there, girl - sit down and join me! Maria has prepared a delicious meal in your honor today. How on earth did a shy girl like yourself ever manage to travel half way around the world on her own?"
"How, indeed," Alannah muttered to herself. "Well" she admitted slowly, "It's a bit like wearing a mask at a masquerade ball. The mask you chose gives you confidence, strength and courage that you wouldn't normally have, but you daren't remove it. The act of wearing that mask means that you're concealing things about yourself - things that can prove to be very . . . painful . . . if ever you were found out. Some of them lies; some - mistakes that others have about you that prove useful; some are assumptions that have no foundation or truth to them. I what I am trying to say is that I've had to learn to be strong when I need to and in certain circles that in itself is a tool of survival . . . except that, as you say, it's all false."
Señora Beringer gave her a bemused look. "You do not sound at all like a girl born to work in a fish market. Your people must have been well-off, eh?"
Ignoring the question posed to her by her hostess, Alannah wrinkled her nose and accepted a stuffed croissant from Maria. "Ach Maria this is Wunderbar!"
Maria, who normally appeared stern and severe, allowed a ghost of a smile to touch her otherwise chisled features, as she finished setting up their luncheon and left the two alone. As they ate together in silence, Señora Beringer referring often to a sheaf of paperwork, Alannah turned her attention to the view. The grounds around the valley were green, lush, ranquil, and beautiful. The sun would drop its rays into the valley changing the hues from one pastel to the next. Alannah decided that it must be due to the particular alignment of the valley, which ran from east to west. The deep valley of her ancestral home in Dalkey ran north to south, and consequently the days were comparatively short and cool in the early mornings and late evenings. It too was subject to great variation in all its facets over the course of the day. "Who would have thought," she mused, "that there were so many different types of valleys in the world. I'd always assumed they were all pretty much the same."