Flora embarks on her plan to tidy up the family by getting to know the male Starkadders better. Her initial conversation with Reuben doesn’t go well. He fears that she is trying to steal the farm, which he regards as his inheritance. For his part, Seth is suspicious of all womankind because he believes they feed on men. He does confess a fondness for the cinema, and Flora files this bit of information away for future reference.

Amos, the family patriarch, appears to be Flora’s biggest problem. He enjoys preaching hellfire sermons to a religious group in town called the Church of the Quivering Brethren. Flora asks to go with him. She watches as Amos takes the stage and observes that “[f]or some three minutes, he slowly surveyed the Brethren, his face wearing an expression of the most profound loathing and contempt, mingled with a divine sorrow and pity […] The man was an artist” (79).

Flora ducks out of the sermon and goes to a local tea shop to wait for Amos, where she runs across a London acquaintance named Mr. Meyerburg; Flora refers to him as Mr. Mybug. He is a writer and an intellectual, and Flora would like to avoid him, but it is too late.