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At the story's end, Conway glimpses the fact that his inheritance is not all debilitating humbug. From father he has at least unwittingly acquired an urge to be of service. And, in a world of increasingly measured motives and sternly allotted psychological pigeonholes, he can not shake off an India-given sense of the mystery and the marvelous confusion of the world. The Birds of Paradise is a rare literary bird, a novel that in a short space re-creates a man's lifetime. Using exotic backgrounds, it manages to say something useful about growing up—a process that only children believe takes place mainly in childhood.