Then he would hear
doors being slammed upstairs; and a profound silence would fall upon the
whole house, upon his hotel appropriated, haunted by those insolently
outspoken men provided with a whole armoury of weapons in their trunks.
A profound silence. Schomberg sometimes could not resist the notion that
he must be dreaming. Shuddering, he would pull himself together,
and creep out, with movements strangely inappropriate to the
Lieutenant-of-the-Reserve bearing by which he tried to keep up his
self-respect before the world.
A great loneliness oppressed him. One after another he would extinguish
the lamps, and move softly towards his bedroom, where Mrs. Schomberg
waited for him--no fit companion for a man of his ability and "in the
prime of life." But that life, alas, was blighted. He felt it; and never
with such force as when on opening the door he perceived that woman
sitting patiently in a chair, her toes peeping out under the edge of her
night-dress, an amazingly small amount of hair on her head drooping
on the long stalk of scraggy neck, with that everlasting scared grin
showing a blue tooth and meaning nothing--not even real fear. For she
was used to him.
Sometimes he was tempted to screw the head off the stalk. He imagined
himself doing it--with one hand, a twisting movement. Not seriously, of
course. Just a simple indulgence for his exasperated feelings.
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