Chap­ter XXIII opens with an unex­pect­ed shift in Gombauld’s mood. Just moments before, frus­tra­tion had bub­bled under his calm exte­ri­or, most­ly direct­ed at Anne. But when Mr. Sco­gan and Denis step into the stu­dio, the irri­ta­tion van­ish­es, replaced by a sud­den buoy­an­cy. Their arrival acts as a wel­come dis­rup­tion, sav­ing Gom­bauld from what might have turned into a quar­rel. He greets them with exag­ger­at­ed warmth, even invit­ing them to inspect his lat­est work. Mr. Sco­gan imme­di­ate­ly oblig­es, lean­ing in to study the por­trait in progress. To everyone’s sur­prise, includ­ing Gombauld’s, he offers some­thing akin to praise. The painting’s emo­tion­al under­cur­rent and psy­cho­log­i­cal depth impress him—especially con­sid­er­ing Gombauld’s usu­al loy­al­ty to abstrac­tion. The con­ver­sa­tion quick­ly drifts into Scogan’s famil­iar ter­ri­to­ry: the ten­sion between nat­ur­al dis­or­der and human-imposed struc­ture.

Sco­gan, as usu­al, posi­tions him­self as a man dis­il­lu­sioned with nature. To him, the organ­ic world is chaot­ic, exces­sive, and ulti­mate­ly indif­fer­ent to rea­son. He claims to pre­fer envi­ron­ments designed by human logic—grids, angles, clean lines—where unpre­dictabil­i­ty is reduced and every­thing has its place. The Lon­don Under­ground, in all its mechan­i­cal pre­ci­sion, is described as a tri­umph of human will over nat­ur­al sprawl. Sim­i­lar­ly, he speaks of Cubism with enthu­si­asm, admir­ing how it elim­i­nates nat­ur­al ref­er­ences in favor of abstract geom­e­try. Art, he argues, should not imi­tate nature but replace it. Gom­bauld, half-lis­ten­ing and half-paint­ing, seems amused more than per­suad­ed. Denis, mean­while, absorbs the scene with qui­et ten­sion, torn between the pull of Scogan’s ideas and his own con­flict­ing emo­tions about Anne.

Denis finds him­self drift­ing toward Anne, though not with delib­er­ate inten­tion. Some­thing unspo­ken stirs in him, a long­ing he hasn’t ful­ly admit­ted. His gaze meets hers—not bold­ly, but search­ing­ly, almost plead­ing for clar­i­ty. Anne’s response is light and iron­ic, her smile a sur­face over some­thing unread­able. The exchange pass­es quick­ly, but it lingers with Denis, who can’t decide whether to feel hope­ful or dis­missed. He turns instead to the near­est distraction—Gombauld’s paintings—and invites Anne to join him. She agrees, and togeth­er they step aside to exam­ine the works. There’s no con­ver­sa­tion, just shared glances at oil and can­vas. They look at a paint­ing of a man thrown from a horse, the com­po­si­tion dra­mat­ic and chaot­ic. A del­i­cate still life fol­lows, and final­ly, a qui­et coun­try­side framed in soft tones. Each piece car­ries Gombauld’s sig­na­ture style, but the mood shifts with each image, like emo­tion­al chap­ters in a silent sto­ry.

As they move from paint­ing to paint­ing, Mr. Sco­gan con­tin­ues to expound in the back­ground. His com­men­tary is both lofty and absurd, as he dis­miss­es the nat­ur­al world as an out­dat­ed back­drop for human dra­ma. He sug­gests that true beau­ty lies in syn­thet­ic creation—in minds, not moun­tains. Denis, half-engaged with the art­work, lis­tens and won­ders whether Scogan’s cyn­i­cism hides dis­ap­point­ment or sim­ply serves as armor. There’s a the­atri­cal qual­i­ty to Scogan’s dis­dain, but it res­onates. Denis has always strug­gled with the raw­ness of emo­tion and the dis­or­der of human rela­tion­ships. The clean lines of Cubism, or the struc­tured clar­i­ty of poet­ic form, seem safer by com­par­i­son. And yet, Anne, unpre­dictable and soft­ly smil­ing, holds more pow­er over him than any con­cept ever could.

Anne, for her part, seems unboth­ered by the intel­lec­tu­al fog that fills the room. She moves with ease, com­ment­ing occa­sion­al­ly on a col­or or a brush­stroke. Her words are nei­ther shal­low nor profound—they are sim­ply present, ground­ed. Denis admires her self-pos­ses­sion, even envies it. He feels him­self more a bun­dle of inter­pre­ta­tions than a per­son. Stand­ing beside her, he wish­es to speak with ease, to con­nect with­out analy­sis. But he can­not escape his habit of obser­va­tion. He watch­es everything—Scogan’s ges­tur­ing hands, Gombauld’s squint of con­cen­tra­tion, the curve of Anne’s wrist as she points at a frame. Every­thing is mean­ing­ful, and yet noth­ing is said aloud.

The scene set­tles into a qui­et rhythm—paint, light, talk, silence. Gom­bauld paints. Sco­gan ram­bles. Anne moves. Denis thinks. In this small stu­dio, the larg­er themes of the nov­el echo: the fric­tion between intel­lect and feel­ing, the safe­ty of abstrac­tion ver­sus the chaos of real con­nec­tion. Art becomes a back­drop for per­son­al truth, a mir­ror reflect­ing the ten­sions every­one tries to con­ceal. Chap­ter XXIII doesn’t end with dra­ma, but with some­thing softer—a ques­tion left hang­ing between two peo­ple, and the ongo­ing hum of a con­ver­sa­tion no one knows how to fin­ish.