Mr Beebe bicycles over the ridge and laughs, as he always does, at Windy Corner: a cube built for the most rooms per pound, with a turret like a rhinoceros horn where Mrs Honeychurch watches the carts in wet weather. He is bringing a letter. The Miss Alans, kept out of Cissie Villa, are going to Greece. Athens is a plunge. Miss Catharine's doctor has ordered special digestive bread, but they can take that with them, and is there an English church? They may not go further than Athens, though a comfortable pension at Constantinople would be a kindness. A carriage starts up the drive and stops, because the horse expects people to walk the hill. Cecil, in a bowler, is leaving. Freddy, in a cap, is seeing him to the station. There is a trunk beside the coachman. Mr Beebe reads them the letter and calls Greece too big for their little lot. Italy is as much as they can manage. Cecil agrees, and gets in. Freddy runs back for the match-box and says, quietly, that Cecil is hard hit. Lucy will not marry him. It was late last night. If Mr Beebe had gone on about her, Cecil might have broken down. Alone, the clergyman strikes his bicycle saddle. It was the one foolish thing she ever did. What a glorious riddance.
Indoors she is tinkling a Mozart sonata. In the garden the wind has broken the dahlias. Mrs Honeychurch looks cross and will not take Charlotte's scissors. Minnie whispers that everyone is disagreeable, and that it is not her fault if the strings tear longways. Mr Beebe takes the child, and Charlotte, to tea at the Beehive. Lucy will not come. He tells her he met them on the hill, and that Freddy told him. She plays a note for each person who knows, then a sixth. Mother minds dreadfully, she says. Freddy minds. Mr Beebe can see that Freddy never hit it off with Cecil. He starts the Miss Alan letter only as something to do. After a few words her eyes grow alert. Going abroad? When do they start? She laughs, and then she is serious. She has always longed for Constantinople, which is practically Asia, and for Greece even more. Her mother must spare her. She has to go away. She runs her fingers through her hair. Cecil was kind, but he was masterful. He would improve her where she cannot be improved. He will not let a woman decide. Mr Beebe agrees so thoroughly that he asks whether it is worth rushing as far as Greece. She strikes her knees. She must go somewhere, and here is the thing.
At the tavern Charlotte almost drops her careful manner. Why Greece? Why not Tunbridge Wells? Lucy refused six months with her. Then, whispering through her veil, Charlotte says she will help. She knows. Lucy must not stop at Windy Corner a moment, and they must keep quiet until she goes. Against Mrs Honeychurch the two of them are helpless unless he joins. He sets his jaw. He will help. He does not jump to the crude idea of another man. He feels some vague influence from which the girl wants to be delivered, and his own belief, usually hidden, comes up: those who marry do well, but those who refrain do better. He is willing to set Lucy out of reach until she can hold to that. They walk home through black and grey. Mrs Honeychurch is still among the flowers, now with Freddy. She is thankful about Cecil, simply thankful, and she does not see why Greece is necessary. In the dining-room Mr Beebe bends her. Lucy would never have carried so expensive a plan alone, and neither would Charlotte. The honours rest with him.
Lucy is at the piano, singing a song Cecil gave her. Look not thou on beauty's charming. Sit thou still when kings are arming. Her mother kisses her and says she is sorry she was cross about Greece. It came on top of the dahlias. Lucy may go, if the Miss Alans will have her. The thanks are real, and smaller than Mr Beebe expected. Freddy lies on the floor with his head against her. The group is beautiful, and the clergyman cannot see why she should marry or travel when she has this. Freddy says the tune is all right and the words are rotten. Why throw up the sponge? Mr Beebe bicycles away into the gale. The song's high accompaniment seems to criticise its own advice, vacant heart and hand and eye, easy live and quiet die. For the fourth time Windy Corner lies below him, a beacon in the roaring dark.
