- Carl returns from his chat with Lou and Oscar. He avoids making eye contact with Alexandra, and she assumes that he's decided to takeoff.
- Carl confirms. He's sad that she's surrounded by such "little men," including himself (2.12.5). He's heading off tomorrow. He says he can't promise that he'll return with something more to offer.
- But, Alexandra responds, money is not something she needs. She's loaded. What she needs is him. She doesn't even know why she has all her money, if she has no one to be with.
- Carl says it's not just that he can't give her anything. It's that he can't live with himself as a man with no means of his own. He needs to go make his own money.
- Alexandra has a feeling he won't come back if they don't act now. Something could happen to them in the meantime.
- Carl refuses. He has to go up North. He asks Alexandra to wait for him for a year.
- They both look at the portrait of John Bergson. Alexandra says she's glad she can't see him now, when she has become prosperous but is losing the people who matter to her, first Emil, and now Carl.