Chap­ter XXX unfolds with a jolt, as Denis is roused from sleep by Mary’s sharp prompt. The request is simple—send a telegram—but Denis turns it into a the­atri­cal piv­ot in his life. He drafts a mes­sage com­mand­ing his own urgent return to town, fab­ri­cat­ing an oblig­a­tion that jus­ti­fies escape. For once, he acts deci­sive­ly, and that nov­el­ty grants him a strange thrill. He’s rarely known clar­i­ty, often tan­gled in inter­nal hes­i­ta­tions, but this moment gives him a tem­po­rary illu­sion of con­trol. It’s less about the urgency and more about the assertion—the sense of being a man who does rather than only thinks. Yet as he absorbs the warm still­ness of the morn­ing, it becomes clear that this escape is just anoth­er form of retreat, cloaked in urgency to avoid con­fronting the qui­eter com­plex­i­ties around him.

At break­fast, Denis tries to main­tain his new­ly adopt­ed role—purposeful, casu­al, detached. He hides behind the news­pa­per like armor, dodg­ing philo­soph­i­cal vol­leys from Mr. Sco­gan, whose pres­ence is both com­ic and intru­sive. The din of con­ver­sa­tion fades beneath the hum of his own anx­ious thoughts. Just as he feels the com­fort of tem­po­rary still­ness, Mary reminds him about the train, and Anne’s light, unbur­dened chat­ter stirs anoth­er lay­er of dis­com­fort. Denis clings to his fab­ri­cat­ed depar­ture, using it as a shield to deflect inti­ma­cy and evade vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. When Mr. Sco­gan wedges him­self between Denis and Anne, phys­i­cal­ly and ver­bal­ly, the moment is emblematic—every ges­ture of con­nec­tion Denis attempts is blocked, often in ridicu­lous ways. The very absur­di­ty of these social inter­rup­tions height­ens the sense that he is more a spec­ta­tor of life at Crome than an active par­tic­i­pant.

The telegram returns, now trans­formed from a pri­vate ruse into a pub­lic event. It’s read aloud, inter­pret­ed with alarm, and imme­di­ate­ly woven into a broad­er dra­ma by the house’s res­i­dents. Denis becomes the cen­ter of attention—not because of who he is, but because of what the telegram sug­gests. Mary begins plan­ning logis­tics, Priscil­la declares her dreams con­firmed, and Anne looks on with a faint flick­er of some­thing unsaid. Denis feels the weight of the sit­u­a­tion he cre­at­ed, now spi­ral­ing beyond his con­trol. Though the lie was meant to empow­er him, it quick­ly binds him to an exit he no longer seems to want. It’s no longer a ques­tion of escape but of res­ig­na­tion, the irony being that his moment of action has led to deep­er pas­siv­i­ty.

Anne’s reac­tion is sub­tle but telling. Her qui­et sad­ness dur­ing their final exchange echoes Denis’s own sense of loss. The con­nec­tion he thought might bloom now fades under the pres­sure of invent­ed neces­si­ty. Their part­ing feels like the missed begin­ning of some­thing, and in that absence, the moment grows heav­ier. Denis finds no vic­to­ry in his depar­ture, only a reluc­tant accep­tance. The train awaits, and with each tick­ing moment, his grip on the world he briefly shaped loosens. What he had hoped would be a clean act of self-deter­mi­na­tion becomes anoth­er episode in his pat­tern of evasion—an exit, not a trans­for­ma­tion.

Denis’s depar­ture plays out with com­ic pre­ci­sion, exag­ger­at­ed farewells, and the forced cer­e­mo­ny of good­byes. Yet beneath the humor lies the sting of self-decep­tion. His exit from Crome is nei­ther hero­ic nor tragic—it is anti­cli­mac­tic, marked by the empti­ness of inten­tions unmet. Even as the car pulls away, Denis can­not ful­ly grasp what he’s leav­ing behind. The live­li­ness of the estate con­tin­ues, unaf­fect­ed by his choice. Crome moves on, unchanged, while Denis car­ries the weight of action tak­en too late and for the wrong rea­sons. The chap­ter, in its qui­et melan­choly, sat­i­rizes the very idea of deci­sive trans­for­ma­tion when root­ed in false premis­es. Denis want­ed to escape inde­ci­sion; instead, he con­firms its grip by choos­ing the illu­sion of urgency over the messi­ness of truth.