At the end of term, the boys and teachers at Mr. Abrahams’s preparatory school go for a walk along the coast. One teacher, Mr. Ducie, takes Maurice Hall aside during the outing; Maurice is leaving for public school, and Ducie asks what he knows about growing up. Maurice says Abrahams encouraged him to follow in his father’s footsteps, but otherwise knows little; he lives with his sisters and widowed mother, and sees few men of his own social class. Ducie says that, in that case, he will explain sex to him: “All this is rather a bother […] but one must get it over, one musn’t make a mystery of it” (14). To illustrate his points, Ducie sketches diagrams in the sand. He also praises women and the institution of marriage; Maurice says he doesn’t think he’ll marry, but Ducie laughs and says he’ll change his mind.

The pair have continued walking when Ducie suddenly stops and turns around; a group of people is approaching the place he’d drawn his sketches, and he experiences a moment’s panic before realizing that the tide has now covered them. Ducie’s fear angers Maurice, who realizes Ducie hasn’t explained sex as fully as he claimed.