t that
in both cases a small compromise would not have hurt him. But
compromise he would not ... or could not. And as, recalled to reality
by the sight of the week's washing, which strained, ballooned,
collapsed, on its lines in the yard--Biddy was again letting the
clothes get much too dry!--as Mary rose to her feet, she manfully
squared her shoulders to meet the weight of the new burden that was
being laid on them.

With regard to Mahony, it might be supposed that having faithfully done
what he believed to be his duty, he would enjoy the fruits of a quiet
mind. This was not so. Before many hours had passed he was wrestling
with the incident anew; and a true son of that nation which, for all
its level-headedness, spends its best strength in fighting shadows, he
felt a great deal angrier in retrospect than he had done at the moment.
It was not alone the fact of him having got his conge--no medico was
safe from THAT punch below the belt. His bitterness was aimed at
himself. Once more he had let himself be hoodwinked; had written down
the smooth civility it pleased Ocock to adopt towards him to respect
and esteem. Now that the veil was torn, he saw how poor the lawyer's
opinion of him actually was. And always had been. For a memory was
struggling to emerge in him, setting strings in vibration. And suddenly
there rose before him a picture of Ocock that time had dimmed. He saw
the latter standing in the dark, crowded lobby of the court-house,
cursing at him for letting their witness escape. There it was! There,
in these two scenes, far apart as they lay, you had the whole man. The
unctuous blandness, the sleek courtesy was but a mask, which he wore
for you just so long as you did not hinder him by getting in his way.
That was the unpardonable sin. For Ocock was out to succeed--to succeed
at any price and by any means. In tracing his course, no goal but this
had ever stood before him. The obligations that bore on your ordinary
mortal--a sense of honesty, of responsibility to one's fellows, the
soft pull of domestic ties--did not trouble Ocock. He laughed them
down, or wrung their necks like so many pullets. And should the poor
little woman who bore his name become a drag on him, she would be
tossed on to the rubbish-heap with the rest. In a way, so complete a
freedom from altruistic motives had something grandiose about it. But
those who ran up against it, and could not fight it with its own
weapons, had not an earthly chan