do
anything... I burned it, Ginger. The last letter I shall ever get from
him. I made a bonfire on the bathroom floor, and it smouldered and went
brown, and then flared a little, and every now and then I lit another
match and kept it burning, and at last it was just black ashes and a
stain on the tiles. Just a mess!

"Ginger, burn this letter, too. I'm pouring out all the poison to you,
hoping it will make me feel better. You don't mind, do you? But I know
you don't. If ever anybody had a real pal...

"It's a dreadful thing, fascination, Ginger. It grips you and you are
helpless. One can be so sensible and reasonable about other people's
love affairs. When I was working at the dance place I told you about
there was a girl who fell in love with the most awful little beast. He
had a mean mouth and shiny black hair brushed straight back, and anybody
would have seen what he was. But this girl wouldn't listen to a word.
I talked to her by the hour. It makes me smile now when I think how
sensible and level-headed I was. But she wouldn't listen. In some
mysterious way this was the man she wanted, and, of course, everything
happened that one knew would happen.

"If one could manage one's own life as well as one can manage other
people's! If all this wretched thing of mine had happened to some other
girl, how beautifully I could have proved that it was the best thing
that could have happened, and that a man who could behave as Gerald has
done wasn't worth worrying about. I can just hear myself. But, you see,
whatever he has done, Gerald is still Gerald and Sally is still Sally
and, however much I argue, I can't get away from that. All I can do is
to come howling to my redheaded pal, when I know just as well as he does
that a girl of any spirit would be dignified and keep her troubles to
herself and be much too proud to let anyone know that she was hurt.

"Proud! That's the real trouble, Ginger. My pride has been battered and
chopped up and broken into as many pieces as you broke Mr. Scrymgeour's
stick! What pitiful creatures we are. Girls, I mean. At least, I suppose
a good many girls are like me. If Gerald had died and I had lost him
that way, I know quite well I shouldn't be feeling as I do now. I should
have been broken-hearted, but it wouldn't have been the same. It's
my pride that is hurt. I have always been a bossy, cocksure little
creature, swaggering about the world like an English sparrow; and now
I'm paying for it