No; Francisco was not pleased. Not at all! Neither the faint traffic hum nor the gleaming, antiseptic operating theatre impressed her, and it was all because he wasn’t there. Intellectually, she realized that Jesus, the unconquered mysterious stranger with the large dog, had a full life in which he was drinking himself to death in the company of the hateful Julie, and he could not be expected to hold any consideration for the pleasure of one illicit girl. Intellectually, she knew this. And yet…
   Truly, it had been a most underappreciated, looming day when father had brought him to her attention.
   At long last a confused chorus of greetings from the courtyard shattered her composure into a million amoral pieces! She felt her heart suddenly beat with a new, wild rhythm. Surely it could not be — but it was! At the door, the foreign and masculine face she had come to know so well! “Kiss me,” he expostulated in the outwardly-rough manner she had grown to love while the music in her heart rose to a new crescendo of happiness. “I need you, sweetheart!”
   It was then that as he slid the little ring onto her finger, she knew that life without him was unthinkable, if not inchoate. Wthout him, could she ever have began to wonder how she would explain all this to Roger?