The nature of the successful match is never quite said aloud by Conrad, but it is this: Charles requires Emily to humanize his material ambitions, while Emily requires Charles to materialize her humanitarian ambitions. See the key hints in this chapter where Charles admits that "the best of my feelings are in your keeping" just below, and where Emily admits that Charles "had given a vast shape to the vagueness of her unselfish ambitions." As stated in a previous note , their relationship stands allegorically for the relationship between materialism and altruism in the abstract, thereby illustrating a fundamental aspect of those forces in modern history.

The "successful match," however, is actually a superficial alliance overlying a fundamental opposition. Charles Gould actually cares nothing for her humanitarian goals; Mrs Gould actually cares nothing for his goal of rational order.