Chapter 10 ends with the beginning of Edna's deeper entanglement with Robert. When he tells her the tale of the Gulf spirit whom she has captivated, he is also referring to himself. After the powerful music and the liberating swim, Edna is primed for further emotional stimulation and Robert is there to further his romantic interests with the one woman who may take him seriously in that regard.
Chapter 11 demonstrates Edna's potential for defiance. While Edna's wish to remain in the hammock begins as a caprice, it assumes the character of rebellion after Léonce orders her to come inside. Continuing the portrayal of Edna as childlike, Léonce waits out her display of rebellion as though she is a toddler in the midst of a tantrum. When she insists that she will remain in the hammock as long as she likes, his response is calm and methodical: drinking a glass of wine, offering one to Edna, joining her on the porch, and placing his feet up on the railing. His cigar-smoking presence is stifling to Edna's rebellious mood. In fact, he outdoes her when he remains on the porch after she herself yields to the physical need for sleep and goes inside to bed. As the night begins to edge toward dawn, thwarted by Léonce's smug presence on the porch, she "began to feel like one who awakens gradually out of a . . . delicious, grotesque, impossible dream . . . the exuberance . . . yielding to the conditions which crowded her in." As with the swim in the previous chapter, she is delighted to experience a sense of autonomy, which unfortunately dissolves when she tests its limits. These small defeats indicate her greatest weakness: Edna's spirit is strong enough to begin a rebellion but too weak to maintain it.
