Outside Alice’s bungalow after their walk from the Rum Room, Alice and Hayden kiss intensely. When Alice invites Hayden inside, he abruptly pulls away, apologizes, and says he is not interested in “something like this” with her. Alice, embarrassed and angry, challenges his implication, and Hayden clarifies he will not hook up with someone whose dream job he believes he is about to take. Offended by his arrogance and the professional slight, Alice ends the conversation and stalks off, wishing not to see him again.

In the days following, Alice avoids Hayden: on Monday she pretends not to see him at Little Croissant after his run; on Tuesday she reroutes for coffee elsewhere to prevent another encounter. She then heads to Margaret Grace Ives’s property for their scheduled interview.

At the house, Jodi directs Alice to Margaret’s backyard workshop. Alice discovers a large sea-glass labyrinth mosaic on the floor and numerous art pieces made from beachcombed materials. Margaret explains the concept of a labyrinth as a unicursal meditative path, deflecting when Alice asks what she meditates on.

Margaret invites Alice to record while Margaret works, donning goggles and breaking bottles under a towel with a hammer as they talk. Alice considers raising the discrepancy about the Nevada hotel but decides to keep building trust first.

Picking up the family history, Alice prompts that Lawrence had settled in San Francisco and bought his first newspaper. Margaret resumes, saying Lawrence chose to start a new family and, around forty, met Amelia Lowe of the wealthy railroad Lowes. Contrary to public accounts of a businesslike union, Margaret reveals that Amelia’s father forbade the match, so Lawrence and Amelia eloped.

Margaret details how Lawrence used his five newspapers to run flattering stories about the “union of two powerful families,” effectively forcing Mr. Lowe to accept the marriage. The gambit led to Mr. Lowe partnering with Lawrence in business, giving each what they wanted. Margaret confirms that in 1875 their son, Gerald Rupert Ives, was born. She characterizes Gerald as both the architect of the public “House of Ives” and the first domino that set her own life’s path in motion, “for better or worse.”