At intervals through the day he had been going backwards and forwards in the street where Clara had her lodging.
He did not think she would seek to escape from her friends altogether, but her character and circumstances made it perilous for her to live thus alone.
'What does she really wish for ?' inquired Snowdon, when there had been a short silence.
'She doesn't know, poor girl! Everything in the life she has been living is hateful to her--everything since she left school.

She can't rest in the position to which she was born; she aims at an impossible change of circumstances.

It comes from her father; she can't help rebelling against what seem to her unjust restraints.

But what's to come of it?
She may perhaps get a place in a large restaurant--and what does that mean ?' He broke off, but in a moment resumed even more passionately: 'What a vile, cursed world this is, where you may see men and women perish before your eyes, and no more chance of saving them than if they were going down in mid-ocean! She's only a child--only just seventeen--and already she's gone through a lifetime of miseries.

And I, like a fool, I've often been angry with her; I was angry yesterday.
How can she help her nature?
How can we any of us help what we're driven to in a world like this?
Clara isn't made to be one of those who slave to keep themselves alive.