After Alice's return, she spends the day preparing for the dance and goes to pick violets for a bouquet because she cannot afford to buy flowers for herself.

The next day, Alice goes into town on an errand for her father and passes Frincke's Business College on the way with a shudder since she sees it as a place that drags promising young ladies down to "hideous obscurity."

She warns him not to believe the things girls like Mildred will say about her, and she tells a number of lies to obscure her family's humble economic status.

Mrs. Adams uses Alice's distress to finally goad Virgil into setting up a glue factory, which she has long insisted would be the family's ticket to success.

Although he is initially reluctant to "steal" from Mr. Lamb, Virgil finally persuades himself that his improvements to the recipe over the years has made it his.

That becomes especially difficult when she and Arthur encounter Walter in a bad part of town when he is walking with a young woman, who gives the appearance of being a prostitute.

The dinner is a total disaster since the day is unbearably hot, the food is far too heavy, and the hired servants are surly and difficult to manage.

Arthur, still reeling from what he heard about the Adamses earlier in the day, is stiff and uneasy throughout the evening, and Alice feels increasingly uncomfortable.

Virgil confronts Lamb about the situation, works himself into such a state that he collapses, and returns to the same sickbed where he was at the beginning of the book.

Lamb takes pity on the man and arranges to buy the Adams glue factory for a price sufficient to pay off Walter's debts and the family's mortgage.