Chap­ter III opens with a sense of con­fu­sion sur­round­ing Smug­g’s unex­pect­ed engage­ment, which seems out of place to his peers, who view him as nei­ther par­tic­u­lar­ly charm­ing nor social­ly impres­sive. As the group of friends shares dai­ly life prepar­ing for exams, Smugg becomes the sub­ject of mild curios­i­ty and qui­et ridicule. Yet, beneath his seem­ing­ly ordi­nary demeanor, he car­ries a pri­vate rou­tine that breaks the monot­o­ny. Morn­ings that once held sleepy lec­tures or idle chats now find Smugg miss­ing, which stirs sus­pi­cion. When it becomes clear he’s been meet­ing Bet­sy Dill—someone the whole group admired—opinions shift. The oth­ers feel betrayed, not just by his secre­cy, but by his qui­et suc­cess in win­ning over Bet­sy while still engaged to anoth­er. What began as amuse­ment turns into qui­et judg­ment, chang­ing the tone of their friend­ship.

The sit­u­a­tion inten­si­fies when Joe Shanks enters the pic­ture, not with threats, but with star­tling news. He claims Bet­sy as his own, announc­ing a bond that pre­dat­ed all oth­ers. The rev­e­la­tion sends a jolt through the group. Smugg, who thought him­self the clever suit­or, now finds him­self out­ma­neu­vered. His pre­vi­ous con­fi­dence with Bet­sy van­ish­es, replaced by shame and a qui­et retreat into him­self. His silence speaks more than defense could. For the group, Joe’s arrival brings a sense of jus­tice, although not with­out dis­com­fort. They are forced to reflect not only on Smugg’s betray­al, but on their own objec­ti­fi­ca­tion of Bet­sy. The com­pe­ti­tion among them had masked a deep­er truth: Bet­sy was not a prize to be won, but a per­son with choic­es, one of which had clear­ly been made.

Smugg’s sit­u­a­tion quick­ly unrav­els. The engage­ment he main­tained in the­o­ry now feels like a hol­low for­mal­i­ty, lack­ing the loy­al­ty and sin­cer­i­ty it should rep­re­sent. Betsy’s deci­sion to mar­ry Joe—bold and public—finalizes Smugg’s fall from grace. Yet, even as the group watch­es his con­fi­dence crum­ble, a small cur­rent of sym­pa­thy emerges. It’s not admi­ra­tion, but a recog­ni­tion that peo­ple often mask their con­fu­sion with poor deci­sions. Smugg hadn’t planned this col­lapse, but his decep­tion made it inevitable. The oth­ers see him not just as a fool but as some­one caught between expec­ta­tion and desire, pun­ished for try­ing to play both sides. It’s a mis­take some rec­og­nize in them­selves, though unspo­ken.

What lingers after Joe and Bet­sy’s announce­ment isn’t tri­umph but dis­com­fort. For all their teas­ing and assump­tions, no one tru­ly under­stood the depth of Smugg’s emo­tion­al entan­gle­ment. He hadn’t just betrayed some­one distant—he’d betrayed him­self. Sav­ing mon­ey for a future he qui­et­ly under­mined, chas­ing a con­nec­tion that was nev­er secure, he now stands with­out direc­tion. The group, too, feels altered. The fun they shared sud­den­ly seems juve­nile, their rival­ry mean­ing­less. Con­ver­sa­tions now car­ry a new tone: reflec­tive, even cau­tious. Where they once laughed at Smugg, they now speak with restraint, as if aware that mock­ery no longer fits. The chap­ter ends not with clo­sure, but with a sub­tle change in how they view each oth­er.

Smugg doesn’t speak much in the fol­low­ing days. He shows up, he stud­ies, he leaves. But some­thing has shift­ed in his pos­ture and expres­sion. There’s no anger, no self-pity—only the qui­et weight of con­se­quence. The group nev­er sees Bet­sy again after the announce­ment, and she quick­ly becomes a sub­ject they avoid. Joe’s vic­to­ry, if it could be called that, also dis­ap­pears into the qui­et rhythm of local gos­sip. What remains is a sense of the unpre­dictabil­i­ty of affec­tion, the absur­di­ty of com­pet­ing for someone’s heart with­out tru­ly know­ing them. Smugg’s silence becomes part of the group’s mem­o­ry, not as shame­ful as it once felt, but as a shared les­son no one dares to sum­ma­rize aloud.

In the end, Chap­ter III presents more than a tale of jeal­ousy and betray­al. It chal­lenges assump­tions about love, worth, and loy­al­ty, show­ing how the human heart rarely moves in expect­ed direc­tions. The chap­ter reminds us that real growth often comes through awk­ward, painful rev­e­la­tions that force characters—and readers—to recon­sid­er how rela­tion­ships should be val­ued. Even in dis­ap­point­ment, there is room for insight, and Smugg’s qui­et fall leaves behind the kind of impres­sion that lingers longer than scan­dal.