This book opens with two newspaper articles. The first, from 1938, describes a speech Richard made praising Neville Chamberlain for signing the Munich Accord and securing peace in Europe: "[a] strong, healthy Germany, he claimed, was in the interests of the West, and of business in particular" (455). The speech was well received and taken as a sign of Richard's interest in politics. The other article describes an Ottawa garden party held in honor of the visiting King and Queen of England. Richard and Iris attended and "were singled out" for presentation (456). 

Meanwhile, as the novel-within-a-novel draws toward a close, the woman meets the man at the train station and the two go to a cheap hotel. The woman questions her lover about the follow-up to the story about Xenor and Zycron, and he says he couldn't finish it because he was "too busy getting shot at" in the Spanish Civil War (460). After resting, however, he admits that he’ll return to Europe if another war breaks out, and his lover begins crying. When we next see her, World War II is underway, and she is fantasizing about leaving her home and waiting for her lover to return:

[s]he'll rent a room, an inexpensive room but not too dingy—nothing a coat of paint won't brighten up.