In Penang, 1921, Lesley travels by rickshaw into town, her thoughts dwelling on Willie Maugham's startled reaction to the letter and his unexpected knowledge of Sun Yat Sen. She recalls how Robert, weeks earlier, had cabled his old friend Maugham in Singapore, eager to reconnect after twenty years. When Willie's acceptance arrived, Robert revealed he would bring his secretary, Gerald Haxton, prompting Lesley to prepare two rooms. Robert warned her to be careful around Willie, a writer who sniffs out scandals, and rumored to have run a spy network in Geneva during the war.

At the same lunch, Robert raised his brother Bernard's offer for them to relocate to a sheep farm abroad, citing Dr. Joyce's recommendation that desert air would benefit his damaged lungs. Lesley refused outright, furious that Robert had decided to sell the house without consulting her. She suspected he timed the announcement to soften her anger during Maugham's visit.

The flashback shifts to the Maughams' arrival at Cassowary House. Lesley meets the writer, noting his stammer and turtle-like appearance, and his younger, handsomer secretary Gerald. Over evening drinks, she abruptly realizes Willie and Gerald are lovers, and that Robert knew. The men reminisce about meeting at Edmund Gosse's luncheon in 1897, sharing a flat as bachelors, and their separate marriages. Gerald recounts a near-death tidal bore in Sarawak; Robert counters with the parallel story of Alexander the Great's flotilla. Lesley notices Robert laughing in a way he no longer does with her, and feels Willie observing her too closely.

The memory of another guest, Sun Yat Sen (Sun Wen), surfaces. Pressed by Robert's plan to sell the house, Lesley resolves to write to Sun Wen and journeys to Armenian Street to find the old Tong Meng Hui headquarters at number 120. The building has been sold; the revolutionary society no longer exists. Crossing to a corner shophouse on lower Armenian Street, she touches its unpainted door, which leaves soot on her palm, and quietly walks away, her hopes of reconnecting to that past dimmed.