IV

TWO DAYS OF PARADISE

At first Elsa did not know whether she was annoyed or amused. The
man's action was absurd, or would have been in any other man. There
was something so singularly boyish in his haste that she realized she
could not deal with him in an ordinary fashion. She ought to be angry;
indeed, she wanted to be very angry with him; but her lips curled, and
laughter hung upon them, undecided. His advice to her to go home was
downright impudence; and yet, the sight of the parrot-cage, dangling at
his side, made it impossible for her to take lasting offense. Once
upon a time there had been a little boy who played in her garden. When
he was cross he would take his playthings and go home. The boy might
easily have been this man Warrington, grown up.

Of course he would come and apologize to her for his rudeness. That
was one of the necessary laws of convention; and ten years spent in
jungles and deserts and upon southern seas could not possibly have
robbed him of the memory of these simple ethics that he had observed in
other and better times. Perhaps he had resented her curiosity; perhaps
her questions had been pressed too hard; and perhaps he had suddenly
doubted her genuine interest. At any rate, it was a novel experience.
And that bewildering likeness!

She returned to her chair and opened the book again. And as she read
her wonder grew. How trivial it was, after all. The men and women she
had calmly and even gratefully accepted as types were nothing more than
marionettes, which the author behind the booth manipulated not badly
but perfunctorily. The diction was exquisite; there was style; but now