What Might Have Been begins with the sun blaz­ing down on an oth­er­wise lazy Sun­day, the kind of day designed for doing noth­ing at all. Yet, Dol­ly, with her char­ac­ter­is­tic whim­sy, declares that the flower pots lin­ing one side of the ter­race would look infi­nite­ly bet­ter on the oth­er. Her sug­ges­tion, imprac­ti­cal and ill-timed, car­ries the soft tyran­ny of some­one who always gets their way through sheer con­vic­tion. Archie, ever oblig­ing and faint­ly exas­per­at­ed, takes up the task with­out protest. The rest of the par­ty, includ­ing the nar­ra­tor Samuel Carter, watch­es from the shade, voic­es full of idle com­men­tary and mild sar­casm. What unfolds is less about pots and more about people—the strange tug between desire and oblig­a­tion, between appear­ances and what lies qui­et­ly beneath.

Carter’s dry obser­va­tions serve as the lens through which we watch the oth­ers. Nel­lie Phaeton, seat­ed beside him, turns the pot-mov­ing episode into an alle­go­ry for love, ask­ing why peo­ple do fool­ish things for romance and how much effort is enough. Their con­ver­sa­tion tip­toes between humor and melan­choly, touch­ing on self-doubt and social expec­ta­tion. Carter, wry and self-dep­re­cat­ing, con­fess­es that he avoids roman­tic entan­gle­ments not out of high prin­ci­ple, but self-preser­va­tion. His tone sug­gests amuse­ment, but there’s a hint of truth beneath his laughter—a man who’s observed too much to fall eas­i­ly, yet per­haps won­ders what he’s missed. Nel­lie, ever insight­ful, doesn’t chal­lenge him, but lets the silence between com­ments say what her words do not. In their exchange lies a qui­et acknowl­edg­ment of the roles peo­ple play and the risks they often avoid.

Then, in a moment that sur­pris­es even him, Carter ris­es and begins mov­ing the flower pots. It’s a ges­ture that holds no prac­ti­cal neces­si­ty and is dri­ven by nei­ther love nor obligation—only an odd desire to act. Dolly’s face reg­is­ters amuse­ment, and the oth­ers glance up with inter­est, as if wit­ness­ing a char­ac­ter step out of a famil­iar role. The phys­i­cal labor, per­formed with­out com­plaint, becomes a sym­bol­ic gesture—a word­less protest against indif­fer­ence or per­haps a qui­et claim on agency. Carter, usu­al­ly detached, briefly immers­es him­self in the world he cri­tiques. His action is sim­ple, but lay­ered with mean­ing, blur­ring the line between jest and sin­cer­i­ty.

When the task is done, Dol­ly apprais­es the result with her usu­al flair for mis­chief. She declares, quite seri­ous­ly, that they looked bet­ter where they were before. No apol­o­gy is offered—just a whim­si­cal shrug. The absur­di­ty of the moment hangs in the air, but the ten­sion eas­es into laugh­ter. It’s clear to every­one that the pots were nev­er the point. The con­ver­sa­tion turns, as con­ver­sa­tions often do, from the ridicu­lous to the near­ly pro­found. Carter is teased about his rumored inter­est in Mrs. Hilary, an idea he finds both ridicu­lous and odd­ly reveal­ing. The sug­ges­tion forces him to exam­ine the sto­ries oth­ers assign to him, and the ones he might secret­ly enter­tain him­self.

Dol­ly, ever watch­ful, catch­es his hes­i­ta­tion. Their exchange is charged but light, a dance of impli­ca­tions and retreats. She watch­es him, eyes twin­kling, and then—without instruction—begins to move the pots back. This small, silent act is more than rever­sal; it’s a qui­et response to Carter’s ges­ture. Per­haps it’s acknowl­edg­ment, per­haps deflec­tion, but it marks a shared under­stand­ing that words hadn’t touched. There is no grand res­o­lu­tion, no con­fes­sion or kiss—only the sound of pot­tery scrap­ing gen­tly across stone and the sun cast­ing long shad­ows over a ter­race that now holds a lit­tle more mean­ing than it did that morn­ing.

The chap­ter is not a love sto­ry, but it hints at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of one that almost was, or could be. It ques­tions how far peo­ple will go for affec­tion, for recog­ni­tion, or sim­ply to break the monot­o­ny of rou­tine. Carter, reflec­tive and skep­ti­cal, moves between irony and sin­cer­i­ty, unsure where he belongs. Dol­ly, with her clev­er­ness and spon­tane­ity, remains an enigma—perhaps a muse, per­haps a mir­ror. What might have been is nev­er said aloud, but it lingers long after the laugh­ter fades, tucked qui­et­ly beneath a ter­race scat­tered with flower pots and unfin­ished thoughts.