Gail laughed, her peculiar short, low laugh, that, like everything she said and did, had something a little mocking in it. It was curiously at variance with her boyishness. You could not say she was masculine, but there was a something stripped away from her which most people class as feminineness. Joy wondered if it was softness she missed--pity, perhaps, or tenderness. She was, at least, brilliant to the last degree when she talked, though it was a perfectly useless brilliance. Gail's life had no other end than amusing herself with whatever persons or things came her way. If they could be laughed at or employed in her service that was all she wanted. "Shocking Miss Archinard is a pathetic sort of performance," said Gail. "Any child can do it. You doubtless do yourself. Joy, she probably thinks your coloring too vivid for ladylikeness. Why, I'm perfectly willing to shock her--it's more interesting than talking to her as an equal--but I merely told the truth. You never in the world would have robbed me of the faithful Tiddy who now crawls at your feet, if he hadn't seen John and Clarence running frantically in your direction." That principle, it dawned on Joy, could be extended. Probably John and Clarence kept each other interested. There was a great deal to learn about men, but on the other hand, there seemed to be a few broad elementary rules to follow--if you were the kind of person who could be cold-blooded enough to follow them. "But don't you ever feel badly when you think how they get hurt?" she asked Gail a little timidly. "Everybody gets hurt once or twice that way," said Gail placidly. "I might as well have the satisfaction of doing it as some other girl." She looked reflectively across at her week-end man, who was just now wrestling with his solo, and obviously wanted to get back to her. "Besides--if you don't hurt _you_ get hurt.... Oh, I was a good, sweet, unselfish, considerate young thing once. I wasted much valuable time trying to be as nice as I could be.... Then _I_ got hurt, and I decided that there wasn't anything in this consideration game. People seem to like me just as well now I'm perfectly selfish as they did when I wasn't." She laughed a little again, and lifted an eyebrow imperceptibly toward Private Willis, who promptly lost a bar of his solo. It was a difficult statement to correct without being rude. Joy let it go. For the first time in her acquaintance with Gail she had the key. She felt sorry for Gail for a moment--for that far-off childish Gail who had been so badly hurt that she hadn't ever dared let herself feel again. She did not know such a great deal about living herself, but she felt that Gail was wrong--that it was better to let things come to you and hurt you, if they would, and go on living, being a complete human being, no matter what happened to you. Then Gail spoke again, and Joy discovered that it was difficult to go on being sorry for her--for the present her, that is.