After Sir Thomas learns of Lucy’s attachment to Isadore he meets the young man and begins to consider more seriously both his circumstances and the possibility of their marriage, gradually becoming less hostile than before, while Tom increasingly regards Jonathan Stubbs as his chief rival and becomes so consumed by jealousy that he challenges him and even confronts him directly, yet Ayala herself begins to reconsider Stubbs’s conduct and character and slowly realizes that the ideal love she has imagined may be very different from genuine affection in real life, while Frank Houston grows ashamed of his earlier behavior and reconsiders his relationship with Miss Docimer, and at the same time Gertrude becomes attached to Captain Batsby and, expecting Sir Thomas to oppose their marriage, plans an impulsive journey to Ostend that pushes the romantic conflicts surrounding the Tringle family into a new and more complicated stage.