Intro. The dining room was absurdly lit, the candles in their silver chandeliers gleamed with an almost aggressive fervor. Gabriel hated the light. She exposed the beaten rugs, fake smiles, and especially the desolate truth of what was about to happen. He remained standing by the window, his fingers drumming against the cold marble of the parapet. Outside, the street seemed swallowed by the moist mist of Recife, the only family and comforting thing amid that forced opulence. The clock in the fireplace scored the exact time. Late. Aragon throating impatiently. That delay was an insult to jeweler Isaac, the man whose gold would solve the ruin of the family. Gabriel, however, thanked every minute stolen. Maryanne's arrival was that of a bride; It was the arrival of a sentence. He imagined her: dressed in the coldness of the metal that her father was polished, a woman as polished and correct as the social rules that forced him to that sacrifice.