"Yes I suppose that is true, what of it?" Alannah admitted, choosing to take his words at face value, and sighing, shrugged. "Not that it would make any difference, I can't marry of my own free will. I am bound to someone else. And men prefer to look at their women not listen to them discuss things like gardening or getting her hand dirty."
"Oh, is that so? You think you know what men like?" Dominic said with a smile. "Then tell me princesa , what sort of women do men like?"
Alannah face turned three shades of red, she avoided his eyes, and for once she found herself unable to say the words, Girls like Rosemary. But instead she said, "You, men like you. But I know I cannot have you."
He smiled when she said that, "and why is that Princesa? Why can you not have a man like me?"
"Because you are spoken for." She said as she looked away from Dominic, crying still.
"Spoken for? By Rosemary? You couldn't be more mistaken on that," Dominic said, taking out and lighting himself one of his small cheroots. He rose from his chair, finally letting go of her hand, but still Alannah was stuck in her chair, as if in a bad dream. Dominic went to a nearby hand-crank gave it a few turns, and a glass window just above them, opened. Allowing for a welcoming cool breeze to enter the room, and calm Alannah spirit. "Women who can't take matters into their own hands every now and then, well in my opinion do not make good wives. It is a comfort to a man to know that, should anything happen to him, his wife will be able to manage without him. You can't have failed to notice that my dear mother here is a rather formidable woman."
"Coffee, Señor Dominic?" Maria asked him from the doorway.
"Yes please, Maria"' He smiled sardonically. "Maria, too, is a force to be reckoned with. And don't be deceived by Rosemary's talk and her good looks. That girl has the nerve of a race horse when the circumstances call for them. She has also has rather . . . well quaint and a little irritating drawbacks."
"That is Dominic's polite way of inferring that Rosemary can be willfully manipulative," Señora Beringer said. "Somewhere down the line she would have to be broken of that, by someone who has patience, that is."
"I wish you luck on that Dominic!" Alannah blurted without thinking.
"Why whatever do you mean Alannah?"
"I have a friend like her. Sophia, from the very beginning she began operating behind her husband's back. She is at heart a very selfish person, and nothing in the world can change that. I used to be that way, until …. Anyway, I was told you and Rosemary are to be married soon." Alannah looked up at Dominic and saw the amusement in his eyes. Alannah flushed scarlet and covered her mouth with both hands, watching Dominic for the responding defensive anger he would surely show. Dominic, however, merely chuckled wryly as he accepted his coffee from Maria.