Chap­ter III: “The Pol­i­cy in Favour of Pro­tec­tion” opens not with eco­nom­ics, but with an inti­mate encounter that reveals the ten­sion between per­son­al desire and moral restraint. In the glow of a fire­lit room, an old­er woman’s soli­tude is bro­ken by the sud­den arrival of a young vis­i­tor, cloaked not in winter’s cold, but in the anguish of love unre­turned. The younger woman, refined in dress yet raw in emo­tion, implores her elder to inter­cede on her behalf—her affec­tions aimed toward a well-known man, a mutu­al acquain­tance whose fame and charis­ma only deep­en her obses­sion. She believes that the old­er woman, respect­ed and once close to the object of her pas­sion, holds the pow­er to awak­en his love. Her plea is not self­ish, but born of des­per­a­tion, cling­ing to the old­er woman as the last thread of hope. This appeal, spo­ken with trem­bling sin­cer­i­ty, sets the stage for a more com­plex unrav­el­ing of the heart’s desires.

As their dia­logue unfolds, the old­er woman lis­tens with a calm that only time can grant. She does not rush to judge, nor does she encour­age fan­ta­sy. Instead, she gen­tly steers the con­ver­sa­tion toward the real­i­ties of endur­ing love—the sac­ri­fices, the bore­dom, the relent­less grind of dai­ly com­pan­ion­ship. Love, she warns, is not all let­ters and moon­lit sighs. It is built in silence, in shared dis­ap­point­ments, and in the long work of under­stand­ing some­one not just as a fig­ure of romance, but as a part­ner shaped by flaws. Her words do not dimin­ish the young woman’s feel­ings but offer them con­text. With each soft-spo­ken truth, she press­es the younger woman to exam­ine not only what she feels, but why she clings so tight­ly to it. Is it love, or the idea of it?

What remains unspo­ken is the old­er wom­an’s own silent sorrow—her pri­vate con­nec­tion to the same man now loved by anoth­er. Though nev­er revealed in direct words, her tone and hes­i­ta­tion car­ry the weight of per­son­al his­to­ry. She knows what the young woman does not: the man has already cho­sen a path that leads away from them both. Still, the old­er woman does not use this knowl­edge to wound. Instead, she steps aside, not in weak­ness, but in silent dig­ni­ty, allow­ing the younger woman to con­tin­ue her jour­ney unbur­dened by com­pe­ti­tion. This act of protection—quiet, invis­i­ble, but profound—is the very essence of the chapter’s title. It reflects a form of emo­tion­al safe­guard­ing, a delib­er­ate shield­ing of oth­ers from truths that would do more harm than good.

Time pass­es, and the younger woman returns, her spir­it shat­tered. The man has mar­ried anoth­er, and the dreams she had so care­ful­ly held have col­lapsed into grief. She weeps not only for lost love but for lost belief—that deep, aching dis­il­lu­sion­ment that comes when the world refus­es to bend to the heart’s will. The old­er woman embraces her, not with plat­i­tudes, but with a per­spec­tive born of suf­fer­ing. She tells her that even this heart­break, raw and bit­ter, will shape her into some­one stronger, more aware. It is not a dis­missal of pain, but a refram­ing of it. Love may be lost, she says, but self­hood must remain.

The final moments of the chap­ter shift into a qui­et med­i­ta­tion on what it means to endure. The old­er woman, though alone, does not crum­ble. She reflects on the roles women play—not only in lov­ing, but in let­ting go. Her pro­tec­tion of the younger woman, and per­haps of the man as well, was nev­er about deny­ing her­self entire­ly, but about choos­ing peace over long­ing, integri­ty over rival­ry. The pol­i­cy in favor of pro­tec­tion, then, is not writ­ten in law, but in emo­tion­al wis­dom. It is a way of nav­i­gat­ing life’s wounds with­out inflict­ing new ones. That act of shield­ing oth­ers, even while hurt­ing, is not a mark of weak­ness but of pro­found inner strength.

In the end, the chap­ter speaks to a uni­ver­sal truth: that the heart’s bat­tles are rarely won with pas­sion alone. They require patience, clar­i­ty, and some­times the courage to stand aside. Through its char­ac­ters, this sto­ry gives voice to the count­less qui­et acts of sac­ri­fice that shape love’s deep­er truths—acts rarely seen, but always felt. The women in this chap­ter do not fight for a man’s atten­tion; they fight to pre­serve their own sense of worth. And in doing so, they offer a les­son far greater than any roman­tic con­quest. They embody a pol­i­cy not of sur­ren­der, but of strength—one root­ed in empa­thy, pro­tec­tion, and a pro­found belief in the heal­ing pow­er of time.