Zara thought of all these things, as she sat on the rickety chair in the Neville Street lodging.

How she had loathed that whole atmosphere! How she loathed bohemians and adventurers, no words could tell.
While her mother had lived there had been none of them about.

For all her personal downfall, Elinka, Markrute's sister, and an emperor's daughter, remained an absolute _grande dame_--never mixing or mingling with any people but her own belongings.
But now that she was dead, poor Mimo had sometimes gone for company into a class other than his own.
As yet Zara's thoughts had not turned upon her new existence which was to be.

She had drawn a curtain over it in her mind.

She knew but vaguely about life in England, she had never had any English friends.