i’m very interested in the way the pact from the beginning of the book between marie & sadie that they’d only ever love each other, and the idea that they only belong with each other and no one else, has come back around here at the end despite their time apart, and it makes total sense. marie “belonged” to the upper class for a while, but then after her father’s death & assault by philip, she has rejected that society and become a solitary cutthroat businesswoman. the upper class cycles rumors about her and of course the working class hates her for her exploitation. sadie was rejected by the upper class and ran away to the working class, but she never belonged there either. even though she felt that she could be herself there and found a community, she always viewed herself as superior to them and a means to accomplish her own goals and nothing more. she never took them seriously or saw them as real people, just props. and with her writing pushing the boundaries of expectations for female sexuality, she wouldn't be accepted into the upper class again, nor does she want to be.

both marie and sadie are rejected from their original upper class society due to their own rejection of what upper class women are allowed to do, but they both still hold onto their aristocratic mindset and could never identify with the working class, and they refuse to take the revolution seriously, until maybe the end of this chapter. their feminism is inextricable from their class. and that's why they belong together! they are the only ones that can relate to each other. and its interesting that all of the experiences they have each been through separate from each other have only reinforced this exchange of hearts they made when they were very young.