In this story by Paz Latorena a talented Filipino writer, disgusted by men who turn away from her homely face but ogle her attractive body, hides her curves with long, wide dresses. A close friendship develops with an American man who is attracted by the quality of her writing. Feeling that at last she had found someone who likes her for herself, she meets him wearing some of her old figure-hugging clothes. Sadly, his response is not what she had expected. Themes include love, longing, lust/objectification, identity, external vs. inner beauty.
The story is set in the late 1920s, around thirty years after Spain ceded the Philippines to America. An often-overlooked aspect, which suggests that the man and woman could never have become lovers, is his racism. We are told that: he was one of those who believed in the inferiority of colored races, and that he considered her “little lyrics” superfluous effusions of a woman belonging to a race of people who could not think of writing about anything except love.