- Bradley jumps ahead and takes us to Bristol, where he's gone to retrieve Priscilla's jewels and various other items from her former home.
- Bradley makes his way into the house with no trouble, and as he's wandering around trying to find all of the things on Priscilla's list, he hears Priscilla's husband, Roger, returning.
- Bradley goes down to let Roger know why he's there, and the two men begin to argue. Roger refuses to give Priscilla any of the things she wants to take—including her own jewelry—and Bradley is furious.
- Bradley gets even angrier when a beautiful young woman comes into the house and Roger announces that she's his mistress and fiancée. Oh, and she's pregnant too.
- Roger's mistress, Marigold, insists that Roger should send some little tokens along to Priscilla, and she skips around to gather a few things while Bradley rages about the injustice and wickedness of it all.
- After Marigold gives Bradley a striped vase that Priscilla wanted, Bradley storms out of the house, furious with Roger for having treated his sister so badly.
- Later, Bradley is still in Bristol, and he's decided to sit in a bar and drink sherry before heading back to London.
- Pretty soon, Bradley's properly drunk and bemoaning Priscilla's unhappy state. For the first time since the afternoon she appeared at his door, he finally understands her position and her pain.
- Bradley stays in Bristol until late late late late, and then he catches a midnight train back to London.
- On the way home, the striped vase breaks into pieces, and Bradley leaves the fragments behind on the train.
- When Bradley returns home, he discovers that Priscilla has been moved from his apartment to Christian's place.
- Rachel shows up soon to talk to Bradley, and the two of them head to Christian's apartment together, where Christian, Arnold, and Francis are waiting with Priscilla.
- In the chaos of conversation that follows, Bradley tries and fails to convince Priscilla to come back to his apartment.
- As Bradley stalks away angrily from Christian's apartment, Rachel, Arnold, and Francis leave, too.
- Francis offers to go home with Bradley to take care of him, but Bradley gets into a cab with Rachel instead. They head off to the Baffin home, where Rachel has promised to make something to eat.
- Arnold heads to the library, and poor, sad Francis is left behind.
- At the Baffin home, Bradley and Rachel sit outside and eat and chat.
- Suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, Rachel begins to snuggle up to Bradley in a most romantic way.
- Bradley tries to play it off, but when he realizes that Rachel is going to be mortally offended if he doesn't respond to her advances, he changes his tactics.
- As they head back inside into the house, Bradley takes Rachel into his arms, then sits down with her on a couch, where they kiss.
- Afterwards, they talk, and Rachel confesses that she's been wanting to get closer to Bradley for a long time. Bradley echoes everything she says, but he soon tells her that he should probably go.
- Before he leaves the house, Bradley hands Rachel a copy of the review that he's written of Arnold's most recent novel. He's been carrying it around with him, trying to decide whether or not to publish it. It isn't very nice. He asks Rachel to read it and tell him what to do.
- As Rachel walks him out into the garden, Bradley realizes that the evening has come on.
- As they walk down to the gate, Bradley stops and looks behind him, and he sees Julian Baffin sitting in an upstairs window, flying a kite shaped like an enormous, spherical balloon.
- Suddenly, Julian cuts the string, and the kite begins to float away.
- Rachel sees Bradley past the gate and kisses him once more before turning and heading back to the house.
- As Bradley walks on alone, he sees Julian's balloon floating over the nearby trees and houses, and he chases it until he finally loses sight of it as it vanishes into a hidden suburban yard.
- When Bradley finally makes it back to his apartment, he finds Francis Marloe there waiting for him.
- Bradley steps out of the narrative and addresses his "dear friend" and editor, P. Loxias, once again. He muses on the rightness/wrongness of his actions with Rachel.
- Bradley also gives an account of his confused feelings up to this point in his narrative and explains why he was so hesitant to take any decisive steps toward leaving London or solving the problem of Priscilla's care.
- After these musings, Bradley gets back to the narrative itself and reveals that he let Francis into his apartment and invited him in to get drunk.
- The next morning, Bradley wakes up with a hangover, and he also finds a hand-delivered letter from Rachel.
- In the letter, Rachel pours out her feelings about Bradley, about her marriage with Arnold, and about the possibility of loving her husband while also loving Bradley.
- On the whole, the letter makes Bradley uncomfortable—he's flattered and touched by parts of it, but he's also disturbed by the outpouring of womanly feeling.
- As Bradley sits and considers the letter, the telephone rings. His friend Hartbourne is on the other end, wanting to know if Bradley will come to a little office party that's being thrown in his honor.
- Bradley agrees, and he and Hartbourne set a date.
- Almost as soon as Bradley hangs up the phone, the doorbell rings, and he finds Priscilla standing outside.
- Once Priscilla has come inside, she sits right down and starts to cry. As she does, she notices that one of the art pieces from Bradley's display cabinet is missing—a bronze water buffalo with a lady on top.
- When Bradley tells her that he gave the piece to Julian Baffin, Priscilla starts to wail—suddenly, Bradley remembers that that particular piece had actually belonged to Priscilla.
- Bradley promises to get the piece back from Julian, but his promises don't calm Priscilla. She gets back into Bradley's bed without bothering to get undressed, crying that there's no point, she'll go back to her husband, she'll kill herself, everyone hates her, no one cares about her, and so on and so on.
- When the doorbell rings again, Bradley finds Francis Marloe standing outside, and he asks him to come in and give Priscilla a sedative.
- As Francis does, the telephone rings. Bradley picks it up and discovers that it's Rachel, and, after thanking her for her letter, he asks her to take the bronze water buffalo piece back from Julian and bring it around.
- Rachel says she'll come right away.
- Just a short while later, Rachel and Julian arrive at Bradley's apartment. Bradley takes them into the bedroom to see Priscilla, and when Julian attempts to give the bronze water buffalo back to Priscilla, she does it with such a patronizing tone that Priscilla lashes out and throws the water buffalo against the wall.
- Bradley, Rachel, and Julian leave Priscilla with Francis and head back into the sitting room together. There, Rachel suggests that Julian should run along and go about her business for the day, but before leaving, Julian asks to speak to Bradley privately.
- Bradley and Julian step outside, and Julian thanks Bradley for his letter. She also asks him to give her a longer reading list, and she tells him that she read his review of her father's most recent novel.
- Julian agrees with the review, she says, and she thinks that Bradley should publish it.
- Before leaving, Julian tells Bradley that she wants to meet up so that they can talk about Hamlet. Bradley agrees, but he doesn't commit to a date and time.
- When Bradley returns to his apartment, Rachel wraps her arms around him and sinks him down into an armchair, where she cuddles up close to him.
- As Bradley tries to explain to Rachel that he doesn't want to get caught up in the guilt and complications of an affair with his best friend's wife, Rachel insists that everything will work out fine.
- As Rachel starts to kiss Bradley, Francis comes into the room, then leaves when he sees what's going on.
- Francis's intrusion prompts Bradley to untangle himself from Rachel, and Rachel takes the hint and decides to run along.
- After Rachel leaves, Bradley sits alone and thinks. After some time, he realizes that Francis has come back into the room and is looking at him with some concern. Apparently, Bradley spaced out pretty solidly for a few minutes.
- Francis asks Bradley for a bit of money to go out and buy lunch, then lets him know that the bronze water buffalo broke when Priscilla threw it against the wall.
- After Francis leaves, Bradley goes in to check on Priscilla. Then he heads into the spare room and lies down on the unmade guest bed, trying (unsuccessfully) to get his thoughts in order.
- Bradley shares his views on sexuality and sexual desire, and on the relationship between sexuality and art. In doing so, he tries to preempt any overly sexualized interpretations of his story (particularly those of the psychoanalytical variety).
- Later that afternoon, Bradley decides to send his review of Arnold's latest book to Arnold himself. He isn't entirely sure what this'll achieve, but he's pretty sure that it'll provoke some sort of change, at the very least.
- That night, Bradley, Priscilla, and Francis sit together in Bradley's apartment, chatting and making conversation.
- Through talking with Francis, Bradley learns for the first time that Francis and Christian are Jewish.
- And, through talking over childhood memories with Priscilla, Bradley gives Francis an opportunity to share his view that adults can remember their lives in the womb.
- After a little while, Bradley puts Priscilla to bed (Francis had slipped sedatives into her hot chocolate), and Bradley and Francis continue their conversation in the sitting room.
- During this second phase of their conversation, Francis shares his opinion that Bradley is in love with Arnold Baffin, and that all of the two men's competitiveness and behavior toward each other's wives and ex-wives stems from that simple fact.
- Bradley denies the accusation vehemently, and Francis backs off.
- Francis also reveals that he is gay, and he dissolves into tears as he tells Bradley how unlucky he's been in love.
- Bradley is disturbed by the sight of another man crying—even more than he's disturbed by the sight of middle-aged women crying—and he breaks off the conversation as soon as possible.
- Before going to bed, Bradley decides to go and visit Rachel first thing in the morning.
- The next morning, Bradley goes to see Rachel as planned.
- Rachel tells Bradley that Arnold is at the library (or so he says), and Julian's out at a pop music festival. They have the place to themselves, and Rachel intends to make the most of it.
- Rachel leads Bradley up to the bedroom, and as they continue to bicker about the rightness or wrongness of what they're doing, Rachel gets undressed and insists that Bradley do the same.
- As Bradley gets (mostly) undressed, the two lie on the bed together and touch each other.
- Bradley still doesn't want to take things further, and he tells Rachel that he's past the point of being able to perform, sexually speaking.
- As they continue to hold each other, Rachel and Bradley suddenly hear Arnold's voice shouting up from downstairs, wanting to know where Rachel is.
- Rachel gets dressed in a flash and tells Bradley that she'll distract Arnold so that he can make his escape.
- Bradley gets his clothes back on in a hurry—most of them, anyway—and escapes from the house with his tie, socks, and underwear stuffed into his pockets.
- When he's finally a couple of blocks from the house, Bradley meets Julian Baffin coming down the road. They begin to walk together—with Bradley desperately trying to figure out a way to ask Julian not to tell her father that she saw him coming away from the house—and, as they walk, they discuss Shakespeare's Hamlet.
- Over the course of their walking, Julian and Bradley soon come to the shoe shop where Julian had admired a pair of expensive, fashionable boots on the night that Bradley found her throwing torn-up love letters into the road.
- Stalling for time, Bradley offers to buy the boots for Julian, and they go inside.
- After Julian tries on the boots, Bradley catches a glimpse of her legs and experiences an unexpected sensation in his groin, realizing with pleasure and surprise that the old boy still works, after all.
- As Bradley and Julian leave the shop, they set a firm plan to meet on Tuesday morning to talk about Hamlet. When they part ways, Bradley decides not to bother asking her to lie about having seen him.
- It's about noon when Bradley returns home to his apartment, and, to his surprise, he discovers that Priscilla is gone again. In her place, Christian is relaxing on his bed.
- Christian explains that Priscilla has gone back to her apartment to rest there.
- As Christian and Bradley talk, Arnold appears at the apartment.
- Christian tells Bradley that she's going to go, but before she does, she tries to clear the air by getting a few things straight. She isn't having an affair with Arnold, she tells Bradley—the two of them are going into business together. She also suggests that Bradley get himself psychoanalyzed.
- After Christian leaves, Bradley and Arnold begin another of their tense discussions. It doesn't take long for Bradley to realize that Rachel has covered up their little liaison by telling Arnold that Bradley made an embarrassing and unwelcome pass at her.
- Arnold also tells Bradley that he read Bradley's review of his latest novel, and he says he won't be able to forget it.
- The conversation soon turns into an argument about the differences between good writing and mediocre writing, but before it can turn into a nasty disagreement, Arnold does his best to defuse the situation and part on a friendly note.
- Before leaving, Arnold insists again that Bradley should make an effort to be nicer to Christian, and Bradley insists that Arnold should make an effort to be faithful to his wife.
- After Arnold is gone, Bradley calls the Baffin home. When Julian answers, he hangs up immediately.