Sonie is entertaining an eccentric and sharp French fashion designer, slated to make Hopestill’s wedding dress for her upcoming marriage to the doctor Philip McAllister. Mamselle Therese sees through these up-and-coming socialites and confers to Sonie she believes it is a marriage of convenience, and Sonie, having heard Hopestill sobbing nightly into a stifling pillow, privately believes her. The bride’s mother has fashioned extravagant wedding plans and their house bustles day and night with expectant family visitors and preparations. The ceremony itself passes quicker than Sonie expected; he perceives Hopestill’s face to be joyless and waxen throughout and spots an uninvited former admirer ogling her. In the midst of the clamoring reception Hopestill entreats Sonie to join her upstairs, where she slackens and despairs that by this union she is simply “transferring myself from one martinet to another.” Sonie reminds her she didn’t have to marry him, at which point she stalks away.