The two talked late into every night after this, Laura perched, monkey-fashion, on the side of her friend's bed. Evelyn had all the accumulated wisdom of eighteen, and was able to clear her young companion up on many points about which Laura had so far been in the dark. But when, in time, she came to relate the mortifications she had suffered—and was still called on to suffer—at the hands of the other sex, Evelyn pooh-poohed the subject.
"Time enough in a couple of years for that. Don't bother your head about it in the meantime."
"I don't now—not a bit. I only wanted to know why. Sometimes, Evvy, do you know, they liked to talk to quite little kids of seven and eight better than me."
"Perhaps you talked too much yourself—and about yourself?"
"I don't think I did. And if you don't talk something, they yawn and go away."
"You've got to let them do the lion's share, child. Just you sit still, and listen, and pretend you like it—even though you're bored to extinction."
"And they never need to pretend anything, I suppose? No, I think they're horrid. You don't like them either, Evvy, do you? ... any more than I do?"
Evelyn laughed.
"Say what you think they are," persisted Laura and waggled the other's arm, to make her speak.
"Mostly fools," said Evelyn, and laughed again—laughed in all the conscious power of lovely eighteen.