It must be remembered that Clementina at this period was young, and that it is only given to youth to plumb the depths of existence. She was young, strong-fibred, desperately conscious of herself. She had left her home rejecting sympathy. To no one could she exhibit the torture of her soul; to no one could she confess the remorse and shame that consumed her. She was a failure in essentials. She had failed the man in his hour of need. She had let him go forth to his death. She, Clementina Wing, was a failure. She, Clementina Wing, was the world. Therefore was the world a failure. She saw life drab. Her vision was infallible. Therefore life was drab. Syllogisms, with the eternal fallacy of youth in their minor premises. Work saved her reason. She went at it feverishly, indefatigably, unremittingly, as only a woman can—and only a woman who has lost sense of values. Her talent was great—in those days she did not scout the suggestion of genius—and by her indomitable pains she acquired the marvellous technique which had brought her fame. The years slipped away. Suddenly she awakened. A picture exhibited in the Salon obtained for her a gold medal, which pleased her mightily. She was not as dead as she had fancied, having still the power to feel the thrill of triumph. Money much more than would satisfy her modest wants jingled in her pockets with a jocund sound. Folks whom she had kept snarlingly at bay whispered honeyed flattery in her ears. Philosophy, which (of a bitter nature) she had cultivated during her period of darkness, enabled her to estimate the flattery at its true value; but no philosophy in the world could do away with the sweetness of it. So it came to pass that on her pleasant road to success, Clementina realised that there was such a thing as light and shade in life as well as in pictures. But though she came out of the underworld a different woman from the one who had sojourned there, she was still a far more different woman from the girl who was flung herself into it headlong. She emerged cynical, rough, dictatorial, eccentric in speech, habits, and attire. As she had emancipated herself from the gloom of remorse and self-torture, so did she emancipate herself from convention. Youth had flown early, and with it the freshness that had given charm to her young face. Lines had come, bones had set, the mouth had hardened. She had lost the trick of personal adornment. Years of loose and casual corseting had ruined her figure. Even were she to preen and primp herself, what man would look at her with favour? As for women, she let them go hang. She was always impatient of the weaknesses, frailties, and vanities of her own sex, especially when they were marked by an outer show of strength. The helpless she had been known to take to her bosom as she would have taken a wounded bird—but her sex as a whole attracted her but little. Women could go hang, because she did not want them. Men could go hang likewise, because they did not want her.