Summary

Spring has turned into summer. In August, Basil leaves the heat of New York for Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for the purpose of winning Verena Tarrant. As he walks to the nearest hotel on the beach, he is struck by the surroundings: nothing seems to be growing. It just as if everything has stopped at one moment in time. At the shabby hotel, he sees that there are very few other guests. In the evening, he goes for a walk on the beach and runs into Doctor Prance. She is staying with Olive and Verena. Miss Birdseye is also a guest, but her health is extremely poor.

Doctor Prance and Basil pick up their relationship where it had left off two years before. The met the night Verena Tarrant made her debut at the home of Miss Birdseye. She informs the Southerner that the group of women is here in Cape Cod so that Verena may practice for her engagement at the Music Hall in Boston, the largest entertainment outlet in the capital city. Doctor Prance admits that she has  altered her views concerning reform. She also tells Basil that Miss Birdseye believes that he has been converted to their side in the matter of women’s rights. Basil has not talked to Miss Birdseye since she told him the way to the Tarrants’ home in Cambridge many months before. She believed then that Verena would be the means by which he would be converted to their cause, and Verena has given her no reason to doubt her success.

Not wanting to face the other women, Basil decides to wait to make his presence known. But the next morning he is less concerned and goes to the cottage regardless of who is there. The door is open and there is no one inside, but going through to the back veranda he spies Miss Birdseye sitting silently in a chair. Thinking she is asleep, Basil quietly goes out and waits for a response from her. Thinking he is Verena, she asks for her medicine. She is pleased on seeing who it is, hoping that he has come to see Olive, since he would not see her previously when he came to Boston. Soon Olive and Verena come home from the post office. Olive is obviously horrified that he is there. He asks to speak to Verena privately, and both Olive and Verena know what he intends to say. First of all, he informs her that he has sold one of his articles for publication. She is pleased with his success, even though she knows that it contains much of the argument against her views that he gave her the previous spring. A few minutes later she returns to the house and tells Olive about Basil’s visit to Cambridge that she had kept hidden from her. Olive is devastated by the secrecy, and even more so when Verena tells her that Basil has come to propose marriage. She says that she does not dislike him, only his opinions. Olive breaks down and begs Verena not to leave her, with Verena crying out that Olive must help her.

Analysis

The setting of the climax is away from both Boston and New York, in a place that is described as “without maturity.” Symbolic in its signs of growth, Cape Cod mirrors Basil’s view of American society, and perhaps that of the world, especially if the reform that Olive Chancellor is fighting for comes to pass. Olive’s view is only of revenge, not of progress. It is thus a fitting setting for Basil to decide what...