Aunt Emily lectures Binx about his irresponsibility in not telling anyone about traveling to Chicago with Kate. He apologizes for the “misunderstanding or thoughtlessness on [his] part” (221), and his aunt explains that she is not angry but in the throes of a new discovery, a discovery that “someone in whom you had placed great hopes was suddenly not there” (221). She continues to berate Binx for “abusing a sacred trust in carrying that poor child off on a fantastic trip like that” (221) and then asks Binx if they were “intimate” (222). He replies that “intimate is not quite the word” (224), which inspires Aunt Emily to continue her energetic rant. Binx is unable to respond to her satisfactorily, so she thanks him for coming over and he leaves. Kate “hails me at the corner” (227) and asks Binx to wait for her at his house.

It’s both Ash Wednesday and Binx’s birthday, and in a fit of abstract desire, Binx realizes that his “search has been abandoned” (228). After coping with his aunt and “her rightness and her despair, her despairing of me and her despairing of herself” (228), he feels he must “find a girl” (228). He waits for Kate for nearly an hour before calling Sharon at the office, but she does not answer.