The despised Swede became for Schomberg the deepest, the most
dangerous, the most hateful of scoundrels. He could not believe that the
creature he had coveted with so much force and with so little effect,
was in reality tender, docile to her impulse, and had almost offered
herself to Heyst without a sense of guilt, in a desire of safety, and
from a profound need of placing her trust where her woman's instinct
guided her ignorance. Nothing would serve Schomberg but that she must
have been circumvented by some occult exercise of force or craft, by the
laying of some subtle trap. His wounded vanity wondered ceaselessly at
the means "that Swede" had employed to seduce her away from a man
like him--Schomberg--as though those means were bound to have been
extraordinary, unheard of, inconceivable. He slapped his forehead openly
before his customers; he would sit brooding in silence or else would
burst out unexpectedly declaiming against Heyst without measure,
discretion, or prudence, with swollen features and an affectation of
outraged virtue which could not have deceived the most childlike of
moralists for a moment--and greatly amused his audience.
It became a recognized entertainment to go and hear his abuse of Heyst,
while sipping iced drinks on the veranda of the hotel. It was, in a
manner, a more successful draw than the Zangiacomo concerts had ever
been--intervals and all.
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