Then with a rapid step she walked back to Bruton Street, going round by Grosvenor Square and in front of her old house on the way. What should she now do with herself? What sort of life should she endeavour to prepare for herself? The life that she had led for the last year had been thoroughly wretched. The poverty and hardship which she remembered in her early days had been more endurable. The servitude to which she had been subjected before she had learned by intercourse with the world to assert herself, had been preferable. In these days of her grandeur, in which she had danced with princes, and seen an emperor in her father's house, and been affianced to lords, she had encountered degradation which had been abominable to her. She had really loved;--but had found out that her golden idol was made of the basest clay. She had then declared to herself that bad as the clay was she would still love it;--but even the clay had turned away from her and had refused her love!

Then with a rapid step she walked back to Bruton Street. What should she now do with herself? What sort of life should she prepare for? The life that she had led for the last year had been thoroughly wretched. The poverty and hardship of her early days had been more endurable. In these days of her grandeur, in which she had danced with princes, and seen an emperor in her father's house, and been affianced to lords, she had encountered degradation. She had really loved; but had found out that her golden idol was made of the basest clay. She had declared that bad as the clay was she would still love it; but even the clay had turned away from her and had refused her love!
