Chapter 10 Summary

Fleur discloses to the reader that her essential purpose now is to convey how Sir Quentin Oliver tried to destroy Warrender Chase and took the contents of her novel for his own use. She tells that she can show how he actually plagiarized her text, and her purpose now is to write about the cause and effect of these circumstances.

Fleur remembers, as a child, having been instructed to write in her copy book a series of maxims including "Necessity is the mother of invention," "All is not gold that glistens," "Honesty is the best policy," and "Discretion is the best part of valor." In retrospect, although she was not able to grasp it at the time, Fleur has learned that the sayings are actually quite true. Since necessity is really the mother of invention, the first thing Fleur did after returning home...