So this chapter was finished--she realised that. And it had been really worth while. An outlook had opened for her into a whole new world--where realities lived--where new beings moved, where new standpoints could be reached. She saw that her former life had been swept from her--and now, to look back upon, appeared an impossible tedium. She had mastered all the shades of what three days of most intimate companionship with _a gentleman_ could mean, and the memory contained no flaw. Algy's chivalry and courtesy had never faltered; she might have been a princess or his bride, from the homage he had paid her. Dear, much-loved Algy! Her passion for him was tinged with almost a mother love--there was something so tender and open-hearted about him. But now she must take stern hold of herself, and must have pluck enough to profit by what she had learned of life--Though to-night she was too tired to do more than retrospect. Oh! the wonder of it all!--the wonder of love, and the wonder of emotion! She clenched her cold hands round the handle of her little valise. She was trembling. She had insisted upon his keeping the fur-lined coat for the present. How could she account for it to her family, she had argued? But she never meant to take it again. No one was awake at Laburnum Villa when she opened the door with her latchkey, and she crept up to her little icy chamber under the roof, numb in mind and body and soul--and was soon shivering between the cotton sheets. Oh! the contrast to the warm, flower-scented bedroom at the Palatial! And once she had not known the difference between linen and cotton! She said this over to herself while she felt the nap--and then the tears gathered in her eyes one by one, and she sobbed uncontrollably for a while--Alas! to have to renounce all joy--forever more! She fell asleep towards morning, and woke with a start as her alarm clock thundered. But her face was set like marble, and there was not a trace of weakness upon it when she appeared at the family scramble, which did duty for breakfast. There had been a row between Fred and Gladys, the sister a year older than herself, who was a saleswoman at a fashionable dressmaker's establishment. Matilda, the eldest of the family, was trying to smooth matters while she sewed up a rent in the skirt which Ethel, the youngest, would presently wear to the school "for young ladies" which she daily attended. This, the most youthful Miss Bush, meanwhile sat in a very soiled Japanese quilted dressing gown, devouring sausages. There were bloaters on the table, too, and treacle--and the little general servant was just bringing in the unsavory coffee in the tin coffeepot. Tea had been good enough for them always in the father's time, and Matilda for her part could not see why Fred had insisted upon having coffee, on the strength of a trip to Boulogne on bank holiday. But there it was! When Fred insisted, things had to be done--even if one hated coffee!