"Can't I help?" asked Joy, staying conscientiously behind. She still felt that it was her responsibility.
"Not a bit," said Gail. "We're getting along wonderfully. You'd better go up and get straightened out, though—you look blown to bits. Oh, and send John back as you go through, Tiddy can't do the drafts right."
Joy went out obediently.
"John, I am to send you back as I go through. Tiddy can't do the drafts right," she repeated in a colorless voice that had anger underneath it, and walking on as she spoke.
"Drafts—nonsense—Gail's lonesome," Clarence answered cheerfully, from the couch where he had thrown himself.
"All right," said John, who was the soul of politeness, but an annoyingly dense person compared to Clarence, it seemed to Joy. He went out. Joy ran upstairs as fast as she could go. She arrived at the top, breathless and still angry, and remembered that she ought to go in and see Mrs. Hewitt. But the lights were low, generally a sign that the lady was asleep, so she went on to her own room.
"Blown to bits!" she said to herself bitterly, stopping opposite her confidant, the mirror. "And she sitting on a chair looking like Marie Antoinette being taken to execution in a kitchen chair!"
It was a breathless and tautological remark, but it relieved her feelings. "I oughtn't to feel that way," she reminded herself. "Because after all, Gail was here first!"
This didn't seem to make much difference in the feelings. And it was unquestionable that she was blown about, and very young and owned no black dress with poppies, nor yet any college boy who would cook for her at a wave of the hand.
She pawed her wardrobe through furiously. Joy was always very dependent for encouragement on the clothes she wore. The proper gown could make her feel the way it looked, always. They almost had moods sewed into them around the bottom, she thought sometimes.