“It isn’t awful at all. It’s very silly of them to be angry with each other.”

“But divorce. . . . It’s wicked.”

“Nonsense. It may be necessary. It often is. . . . She’ll want a good deal of sympathy.”

“She doesn’t deserve any.”

“How absurd you screwed-up people are! You don’t give sympathy because people deserve it, but because they need it.”

Mary pondered that for a moment or two. Then she asked:

“What did you say I was?”

“Screwed-up.”

Mary said nothing.

“We’d better burn this,” said Serge. “We shall have to be discreet. Letters nearly always convey wrong impressions.”