You marry your honest and able civil servant. At first he does well, but his advancement soon slows down. The civil service has become so corrupt that there are few places for honest men.

You accept that your girlish dreams of helping to restore and reform the Empire were only dreams; instead you settle for making a happy home for your husband and children. Your's is a quiet life, spent in the hope that, when the Empire's glory is reborn, your children and your children's children will participate in that rebirth.