Constance returns to her bedroom and looks at herself naked, examining her body. She notices that she is getting thinner. She thinks of how her body is "going meaningless, getting old, and she thinks that it is the mental life which has swindled her. She is now 27, and she thinks of how she once was so scornful of sensuality. She goes to sleep and feels bitterness towards Clifford, thinking of him as someone who has "defrauded a woman even out of her own body". She feels a sense of injustice. She bounces back and forth between blaming Clifford and not blaming him, and rather blaming the "general catastrophe". She wonders what is the good of her life and her sacrifice to Clifford. She feels that she is merely serving his vanity, and that Clifford was really a buffoon. Clifford's aunt, Lady Bennerley, comes to visit. She praises Constance for aiding Clifford in attaining success. She encourages Constance to live her life. "A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it!" she tells her. She encourages Constance to go to London to live in the world, but Constance does not really like this idea. Another set of visitors is at Wragby: along with Tommy Dukes, there is now Harry Winterslow, Jack Strangeways, and his wife Olive Strangeways. Olive is reading a book about how babies in the future will be fed by bottle and immunized, and she is glad that women will be released from their bodily function. Lady Bennerley professes that civilization is good because it helps one forget one's body. Dukes believes that man can never be released from his body, and that civilization is in a state of collapse. Lady Bennerley agrees that civilization will collapse, but has no idea what will come after it. Tommy believes that might be real men in the next phase, ones who do not just cerebrate. Constance likes some of Tommy ideas, such as the idea that there might be a "democracy of touch" after the fall of civilization, but she also thinks of it as just talk. She feels bored and the days begin to grind away. She writes to Hilda to come visit her, as she is getting thinner and losing some of her vitality. When Hilda visits her, she immediately notices something is wrong with Constance. She looks ill. Constance claims that she is just bored. Hilda tells Clifford that she will take Constance into London to see a doctor, which annoys Clifford. Hilda tells Clifford to get a manservant to look after him. Clifford hates this idea. The doctor simply tells Constance that she needs to be amused, must renew her life. Michaelis visits them while they are in London and he also notes that Constance looks ill. He tells her to come away with him, but Constance feels she cannot abandon Clifford. Clifford agrees to get a servant, a woman named Mrs. Bolton. Her husband had died when he was 28, and Mrs. Bolton is now 47. He had been killed in a coal pit in an accident. Mrs. Bolton received compensation but she was only allowed to collect it in small sums once a week. Nevertheless, determined to be independent and provide for her two children, she has become a nurse. When Mrs. Bolton speaks she shows that she likes the colliers (those who work in the mines) but she also acts as if she is superior to them in class. Mrs. Bolton has a very particular way of speaking and likes to ramble, and she rouses a "new ear" in Constance. However when Mrs. Bolton waits on Clifford, she is very timid. He likes this, because he thinks of her as a "useful nonentity" (82). She accepts her class position vis-a-vis Clifford. Clifford, although accommodating himself to Mrs. Bolton, feels he will not forgive Constance for giving up on her personal care of him. He thought it killed their intimacy, but Constance does not mind this. She feels as if she is untangling the threads of her consciousness from his. A new phase in her life is beginning.