After greeting Eleanor the next morning, Adelaide recalls her visit to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where she drank too much absinthe. There, she met with Marietta Stevens, the proprietor, who mentioned a problem with ghosts in the hotel and asked for Adelaide’s recommendation for someone to dispel them.

As Adelaide and Eleanor chat about Beatrice, Adelaide’s mother’s ghost hovers, judging her daughter for taking the name “Adelaide.” She is unable to communicate with Adelaide; even when she knew the vitriol attack was forthcoming, she could not warn her, and the event still haunts her. She grows impatient with the Dearlies, with whom she made a pact to cause disturbances in the tea shop—like showing herself to Beatrice—in exchange for a promise that one day, Adelaide would see her.

At ten o’clock, Beatrice rises and meets Adelaide for the first time. Adelaide teases her and tries to provoke her so she can read her. Finding her frustratingly endearing, Adelaide leaves for the hotel to meet Judith Dashley, her best customer.

The ghost of Marietta’s husband, Paran Stevens, wanders around the hotel, noting the many successful changes his wife has made to it and remembering the social challenges she faced when they married.