In America, it doesn't matter who you are or what you once accomplished. If you have no money, you lose your standing. She goes to the milliners to try and learn a skill, but she can't do it. She's literally fit for nothing. Holman pauses, sliding the stew bowl back over for another few spoonfuls.
Poverty also has a certain attraction.
I lived in every bad neighborhood I could live in. I purposefully set myself in harm's way because I thought that's what artists did. I really did have a romantic view of being without money. I thought it would ennoble me to cast my lot with lost and drifting people. Instead, it ground me down to almost nothing.