This chapter's epigraph comes from a conversation between the Governess and her servant. The Governess tells the servant that she does not intend to accuse her brother and his mistress of being lovers. She says that she has always been kind and generous to her brother, and that the mistress of her mistress's mother has been pestering her brother ever since, even though she knows that her brother is his sister's lover. The mistress has become his wife, but is now flirting with a "hotshot superstar" . She is afraid of being hurt, and she has done all this because she wants to protect her brother.