- Jim's sitting around and worrying about whether he should cancel his tea-date with Christine.
- He calls the Welch house looking for Christine. But as always, Mrs. Welch picks up.
- Jim decides he doesn't want to talk to her, so he fakes the voice of an operator to say that a call is coming in from London.
- She knows right away that it's Jim; but he pretends that the call is breaking up before she has a chance to be sure.
- Before he hangs up, Mrs. Welch threatens to get her husband to "discipline" him at the university.
- Jim swears to himself and slams down the phone.
- Before he can walk away, the phone rings again. He's wary about picking it up, but eventually does.
- The person on the other end is none other than Catchpole, that dude who dumped Margaret and apparently made her try to commit suicide.
- This guy wants to know how Margaret's doing.
- As you might imagine, Jim doesn't think much of the cat who drove Margaret to suicide, and speaks rudely to the guy.
- Catchpole wants Margaret's current address, but Jim won't give it.
- Eventually, Catchpole convinces Jim to meet him in the pub the next day for a drink.
- As soon as he's finished with Catchpole, Jim phones that Caton guy who's supposed to publish his article.
- Jim tells Caton that he heard about the man's appointment in Argentina, and he wants to know exactly when his article is going to be published.
- Caton is super evasive and won't give Jim a straight answer.
- Jim tries to press, but Caton gets angry and tells him to back off.
- The conversation ends with Jim knowing no more than he did to begin with.
- Jim sits down at his desk and goes back to working on his public lecture, which is coming along now, but not as much as Jim would like.
- As he works, he loses track of time, and barely realizes in time that he needs to meet Christine for their tea-date.
- He rushes to their meeting place feeling sick to his stomach.
- Basically, here's how their date goes: Christine tells Jim that she's stuck with Bertrand, and that she and Jim can't go on seeing each other.
- Jim agrees, saying that he's stuck with Margaret and that's that.
- It's all very unsatisfying for both of them.
- They both admit that they'll probably both get married to someone else.
- It's like each wants the other to argue and to fight for their relationship, but neither one will.
- Oh yeah, and they have the added bonus of getting a really rude waiter.
- When Christine gets up and leaves, Jim goes over to the waiter and demands to get his tip back. After a short argument, he leaves the tea house hating his life.