Looking back, Leo identifies the Norwich shopping expedition with Marian as a turning point. Her attention to his appearance awakens in him a new self-consciousness and a sense of well-being he has never experienced. They lunch at the Maid’s Head Hotel and finish shopping by early afternoon. After lunch, Marian sends him to spend an hour alone in the Cathedral. He meets her afterward by the statue of Sir Thomas Browne, noticing she seems to be saying goodbye to someone across the square before making her way over to him.

Back at Brandham Hall, his new green suit is met with enthusiastic acclaim. The guests make him stand on a chair while they admire the outfit; someone compares his Lincoln green to Robin Hood, which delights him. He says he feels like quite another person. Mrs. Maudsley examines the suit approvingly, then asks Marian whether she completed certain errands and whether she saw anyone in Norwich. Marian says she saw no one, and Leo eagerly agrees—forgetting the full hour he spent alone in the Cathedral.

Leo now embraces the summer heat as a personal ally and imagines his new clothes as only a first step toward full physical union with nature.