The chapter opens with a soliloquy by the Governess, in which she declares that she is not a demon or an executioner, but only a "changning" . The Governess tells the page boy that flirting with her has consequences, and that flirting is a form of flirting. The page boy tries to guess what she has been talking about with the Emperor, but she guesses that he is the son of a wealthy squire. She tells him that the boy has no title, but that he would like her to advise him on how to find work in the capital, and she drives the boy away. She says that the gift the boy brought for her was "most peculiar," and that he should have left it. In the future, she says, if any of the boy's kind shows up in her door, she will kill them.