- The sickness begins.
- Kids start getting fevers and pock marks, and people stop showing up to dinner.
- Octavian's feeling sick too and even asks for a break from playing one of the dances.
- Dr. Trefusis offers to take him to the servants' quarters, but Octavian just observes his mother dancing with all the men.
- He notes that the men either hug her really closely now or just ignore her.
- He asks Dr. Trefusis if this was always the case or if she used to dance in a more proper way, but Dr. Trefusis just tells him to rely on his memories.
- Then Octavian tells him that all of this can't last long.
- Dr. Trefusis goes into how Hesiod thought there were different Ages of man (you know, the Golden Age, the Iron Age, etc.), but that now, he thinks there's a worse metal representing their age.
- Octavian asks him if Mr. Gitney and the others worry about some kind of rebellion.
- Dr. Trefusis lets on what we've all been waiting to know: the Young Men and Mr. Gitney are all worried about the rumor that the Brits are riling up the slaves to rebel against their masters.
- Octavian figures out that Bono was sent away because the College men thought Bono knew something about this uprising, though Dr. Trefusis assures him that Bono was sent away because he was a good valet too (but Octavian's not comforted by this).
- Then Dr. Trefusis lets him in on the real reason for the pox party: Mr. Sharpe and the Young Men have been planning this for a while because they think something's going to happen, and they want their slaves too weak to be able to do anything if a slave rebellion pops up.
- Meanwhile, around them, the young guests talk about total nonsense.
- Octavian fears that everything will change.
- Dr. Trefusis says that he predicts—even with all that might change—there will always be young people making petty small talk.
- Octavian points out that he's young and that, if he could, he'd want to be like one of the young guests at the party, totally oblivious to the seriousness of life.
- Dr. Trefusis winces at that.
- Then, Cassiopeia falls; she's fallen to the illness.
- So Dr. Trefusis and Octavian draw her out of the dance, which continues in their absence.