From the minor characters of Captain Mitchell and Giorgio, through Sir John and the chief engineer, we now ascend to the highest level of Costaguana politics: Charles Gould and the United States financier Holroyd. This chapter introduces Charles and his wife Emily, and relates the history of their marriage and of the San Tomé mine, up to the point where the mine receives Holroyd's full financial backing. On the surface it is a keen study of economic imperialism in action, and especially the domination of South America by the United States. The merits of imperialism are debated in the form of a conversation between Charles and Emily, in which Emily distrusts its inhuman materialism, and Charles defends it as a stabilizing force leading to a "better justice." Both sides of the argument receive supporting evidence: Emily's by the rapacious greed of Holroyd; Charles' by the evident injustice of present Costaguana, as embodied in the brutal dictator Guzman Bento.

Under the surface, however, the chapter is about inherent subjectivity and the inability of people to fully understand each other. Although two people may have the same immediate goal, their private dream-ideals are unique, divergent, and ultimately opposed to each other, so that cooperation becomes a matter of either mistaken assumptions or outright deceit. This is true of both of Charles' relationships -- with Emily and Holroyd. With Emily, both parties believe they have a successful match based on "rehabilitation," neither realizing that her ideal of altruism directly contradicts his of rational justice. With Holroyd, outright deceit is employed, as each partner silently believes he is using the other. This inherent instability of human cooperation drives all politics in a cycle of Unification and Separation, whose outlines are hinted at by references to the vanished ideals of royalty, independence and Federation.