Authoritative Brinker Hadley dresses up and pretends that he is in the military although he still remains just another schoolboy. Gene hasn't heard from him since he had enlisted in the Army and leaves at once to visit him. As he walks to visit Leper at his home in Vermont, Gene is hopeful that the winter is going to end soon. The sun warms him and improves his mood. The winter has been compared to the war and with its departure, the war too would leave him.
Gene wants everything to be peaceful again as it had been during the Summer Session.
Leper talks about how he had deliriously imagined that his corporal's face was on a woman's body and imagines the same thing about Brinker Hadley. Brinker had always been authoritative and Leper equally despises both him and his corporal in the Army. Brinker remains upset that Gene won't enlist with him because of Finny, insisting that he will take charge and clear up the whole mystery of the accident. Gene is surprised to hear this and declares that he had enjoyed pretending that there wasn't a war. He preferred Finny's innocent vision of it being made up by fat old men.