Despondent and disillusioned, he abandons his intended pastoral career and takes a job as an ad writer with Paloma, the American manufacturer of a very successful line of toothpaste.

A fiery and lovely poor woman, Pepita works in a brothel since “I can’t keep body and soul together on what is paid by shoe stores.” Garrett meets her when he and his new coworkers end a drunken debauch by visiting her place of employment.

Pepita, however is frustrated by Miguelito's many infidelities and eventually gives him up after he abandons and humiliates her for an assignation with Marjorie, who has come to Barcelona to attempt the consummation of her seduction of Garrett.

Weighing his two possibilities, Garrett decides that his chances of a happy life are higher with Molly, with whom he shares many cultural affinities, than with Pepita, whose habits and expectations are “foreign” to him.

His irresolute and selfish behavior has symbolically led to Effie's death, Pepita's return to immorality and Marjorie's continuation in a life of debauchery.