A man's woman

by Frank Norris

When the first shock of the catastrophe had spent its strength and Lloyd perforce must turn again to the life she had to live, groping for its scattered, tangled ends, piecing together again as best she might its broken fragments, she set herself honestly to drive this hatred from her heart. If she could not love Bennett, at least she need not hate him. She was moved to this by no feeling of concern for Bennett. It was not a consideration that she owed to him, but something rather that was due to herself. Yet, try as she would, the hatred still remained. She could not put it from her. Hurt her and contaminate her as it did, in spite of all her best efforts, in spite of her very prayers, the evil thing abode with her, deep-rooted, strong, malignant. She saw that in the end she would continue in her profession, but she believed that she could not go on with it consistently, based as it was upon sympathy and love and kindness, while a firm-seated, active hatred dwelt with her, harassing her at every moment, and perverting each good impulse and each unselfish desire. It was an ally of the very Enemy she would be called upon to fight, a traitor that at any moment might open the gates to his triumphant entry.

But was this his only ally; was this the only false and ugly invader that had taken advantage of her shattered defence? Had the unwelcome visitor entered her heart alone? Was there not a companion still more wicked, more perverted, more insidious, more dangerous? For the first time Lloyd knew what it meant to deceive.

It was supposed by her companions, and accepted by them as a matter of course, that she had not left the bedside of her patient until after his death. At first she had joyfully welcomed this mistake as her salvation, the one happy coincidence that was to make her life possible, and for a time had ceased to think about it. That phase of the incident was closed. Matters would readjust themselves. In a few days' time the incident would be forgotten. But she found that she herself could not forget it, and that as days went on the idea of this passive, silent deception she was obliged to maintain occurred to her oftener and oftener. She remembered again how glibly and easily she had lied to her friend upon the evening of her return. How was it that the lie had flowed so smoothly from her lips? To her knowledge she had never deliberately lied before. She would have supposed that, because of this fact, falsehood would come difficult to her, that she would have bungled, hesitated, stammered. But it was the reverse that had been the case. The facility with which she had uttered the lie was what now began to disturb and to alarm her. It argued some sudden collapse of her whole system of morals, some fundamental disarrangement of the entire machine.

Abruptly she recoiled. Whither was she tending? If she supinely resigned herself to the current of circumstance, where would she be carried? Yet how was she to free herself from the current, how to face this new situation that suddenly presented itself at a time when she had fancied the real shock of battle and contention was spent and past?

How was she to go back now? How could she retrace her steps? There was but one way—correct the false impression. It would not be necessary to acknowledge that she had been forced to leave her post; the essential was that her companions should know that she had deceived them—that she had left the bedside before her patient's death. But at the thought of making such confession, public as it must be, everything that was left of her wounded pride revolted. She who had been so firm, she who had held so tenaciously to her principles, she who had posed before them as an example of devotion and courage—she could not bring herself to that.

"No, no," she exclaimed as this alternative presented itself to her mind. "No, I cannot. It is beyond me. I simply cannot do it."

But she could. Yes, she could do it if she would. Deep down in her mind that little thought arose. She could if she wanted to. Hide it though she might, cover it and bury it with what false reasoning she could invent, the little thought would not be smothered, would not be crushed out. Well, then, she would not. Was it not her chance; was not this deception which others and not herself had created, her opportunity to recover herself, to live down what had been done—what she had been forced to do, rather? Absolute right was never to be attained; was not life to be considered rather in the light of a compromise between good and evil? To do what one could under the circumstances, was not that the golden mean?

But she ought. And, quick, another little thought sprang up in the deeper recesses of her mind and took its place beside the other. It was right that she should be true. She ought to do the right. Argument, the pleas of weakness, the demands of expediency, the plausibility of compromise were all of no avail. The idea "I ought" persisted and persisted and persisted. She could and she ought. There was no excuse for her, and no sooner had she thrust aside the shifty mass of sophistries under which she had striven to conceal them, no sooner had she let in the light, than these two conceptions of Duty and Will began suddenly to grow.

But what was she to gain? What would be the result of such a course as her conscience demanded she should adopt? It was inevitable that she would be misunderstood, cruelly misjudged. What action would her confession entail? She could not say. But results did not matter; what she was to gain or lose did not matter. Around her and before her all was dark and vague and terrible. If she was to escape there was but one thing to do. Suddenly her own words came back to her:

"All we can do is to hold to what we know is right, and trust that everything will come well in the end."