He is hoping that they can get the dancing over right away so that he can flee the building in Cinderellan obloquy, but they bid him sit down. The orchestra takes a break and the dancers return to their tables. Doug Shaftoe is comfortably sprawled back in his chair with the masculine confidence of a man who has not only killed people but who is, furthermore, escorting the most beautiful woman in the room. Her name is Aurora Taal, and she casts her flawlessly Lancomed gaze over the other Filipinas with the controlled amusement of one who has lived in Boston, Washington, and London, and seen it all, and come back to live in Manila anyway.