"Women often are--" remarked Davidson. The strangeness from which he had
suffered, merely because his interlocutor had carried off a girl, wore
off as the minutes went by. "There's a lot of unexpectedness about
women," he generalized with a didactic aim which seemed to miss its
mark; for the next thing Heyst said was:

"This is Mrs. Schomberg's shawl." He touched the stuff hanging over
his arm. "An Indian thing, I believe," he added, glancing at his arm
sideways.

"It isn't of particular value," said Davidson truthfully.

"Very likely. The point is that it belongs to Schomberg's wife. That
Schomberg seems to be an unconscionable ruffian--don't you think so?"

Davidson smiled faintly.

"We out here have got used to him," he said, as if excusing a universal
and guilty toleration of a manifest nuisance. "I'd hardly call him that.
I only know him as a hotel-keeper."

"I never knew him even as that--not till this time, when you were so
obliging as to take me to Sourabaya, I went to stay there from economy.
The Netherlands House is very expensive, and they expect you to bring
your own servant with you. It's a nuisance."

"Of course, of course," protested Davidson hastily.

After a short silence Heyst returned to the matter of the shawl. He