She sent for Miss Bartlett.
The contest lay not between love and duty. Perhaps there never is
such a contest. It lay between the real and the pretended, and
Lucy's first aim was to defeat herself. As her brain clouded
over, as the memory of the views grew dim and the words of the
book died away, she returned to her old shibboleth of nerves. She
"conquered her breakdown." Tampering with the truth, she forgot
that the truth had ever been. Remembering that she was engaged to
Cecil, she compelled herself to confused remembrances of George;
he was nothing to her; he never had been anything; he had behaved
abominably; she had never encouraged him. The armour of falsehood
is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only from
others, but from his own soul. In a few moments Lucy was equipped
for battle.
"Something too awful has happened," she began, as soon as her
cousin arrived. "Do you know anything about Miss Lavish's novel?"
Miss Bartlett looked surprised, and said that she had not read
the book, nor known that it was published; Eleanor was a reticent
woman at heart.
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