“Home!” repeated the policeman; “––that’s the answer. G’wan, now, peaceable––lave these ladies pass!–––”
Ilse and Palla, still walled in by a grinning, admiring soldiery, took advantage of the opening and fled, followed by cheers as far as Palla’s door.
“Good heavens, Ilse,” she exclaimed in fresh dismay, as she began to realise the rather violent rôles they both had played, “––is that your idea of education for the masses?”
A servant answered the bell and they entered the house. And presently, seated on the chaise-longue in Palla’s bedroom, Ilse Westgard alternately gazed upon her ruined white gloves and leaned against the cane back, weak with laughter.
“How funny! How degrading! But how funny!” she kept repeating. “That large and enraged Jew with the red flag!––the wretched little Christian shrimp you carried wriggling away by the collar! Oh, Palla! Palla! Never shall I forget the expression on your face––like a bored housewife, who, between thumb and forefinger, carries a dead mouse by the tail–––”
“He was trying to kick you, my dear,” explained Palla, beginning to remove the hairpins from her hair.
Ilse touched her eyes with her handkerchief.
“They might have thrown bombs,” she said. “It’s all very well to laugh, darling, but sometimes such affairs are not funny.”
Palla, seated at her dresser, shook down a mass of thick, bright-brown hair, and picked up her comb.