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By Root 14206 0

the lei floated in toward shore, you would come back. If it floated out to sea, you wouldn’t. She would throw them all over, all seven of them; it would be better than keeping them and seeing them dry up sourly and wither. Then she amended it. She would keep the red and black paper lei from the Regiment. That would do for a souvenir. Probably every Enlisted Man who had ever served in the Regiment and gone back Stateside had one in his footlocker. Karen had acquired a new understanding, and a very powerful affinity, for the ways of Enlisted Men in the past ten months.

“Its all very lovely, isnt it?” the girl in black said from down the rail.

“Yes. It is,” Karen smiled. “Very.”

The girl took a couple of polite steps nearer her along the rail, and then stopped. She was not wearing any leis.

“One rather hates to leave it,” she said softly.

“Yes,” Karen smiled, her communion broken. She had noticed the girl before. She wondered momentarily, now, from her poise and carriage, if the girl was not perhaps a movie star caught over here on vacation by the blitz and unable to get home any sooner. Dressed all in such simple, almost severe, but quite expensive black like that. She looked remarkably like Hedy Lamarr.

“No one would know there was a war, from out here,” the girl said.

“It looks very peaceful,” Karen smiled; out of the corner of her eye she looked at her jewels, the single ring on her right hand and the necklace, both pearls, that unobtrusively carried out the exquisite perfection of the simplicity. The pearls did not look like cultured pearls, either. And such flawless simplicity as that did not come simply. Karen had spent that time once herself, but not anymore. It required either the services of a couple of maids, or else painstaking hours of hard work. Before the evidence of it now, enviously, she felt almost frowsy. A woman with a small child could not compete in the league this girl played in.

“I can almost see where I worked from here,” the girl said.

“Where is that?” Karen smiled.

“I could point it out to you, but you couldnt see it unless you already knew the building.”

“Where did you work?” Karen smiled encouragingly.

“American Factors,” the girl said. “I was a private secretary.” She turned and smiled at Karen slowly out of the lovely childlike face, pale white, hardly touched by the sun, and framed starkly by the shoulder-length raven-black hair parted in the middle.

She has a face like a Madonna, Karen thought exquisitely. Watching her was like being in an art gallery.

“I should think that would have been a position to have hung onto,” she said.

“I—” the girl said and stopped and the Madonnaface clouded somberly. “It was,” she said simply. “But I couldn’t stay.”

“I’m sorry,” Karen said. “I didnt mean to intrude myself.”

“It isnt that,” the exquisite girl smiled at her. “You see; my fiancé was killed on December 7th.”

“Oh, I am sorry,” Karen said, shocked.

The girl smiled at her. “Thats why I couldnt stay any more. We were planning to be married next month.” She turned and looked back out across the water to shore, the lovely Madonnaface sad and pensive. “I love the Islands, but you can see why I couldnt stay.”

“Yes,” Karen said, not knowing what to say. Talking helped, sometimes. Especially if it was with another woman. The best thing was to just let her talk.

“He was shipped over here a year ago,” the girl said. “I came over afterwards and took a job, so I could be near him. We were both saving our money. We were going to buy a little place up above Kaimuki. We wanted to buy the place before we married. He was going to ship over for another tour of duty, maybe several. You can see why I wouldnt want to stay, cant you?”

“Oh, my dear,” Karen said, helplessly.

“Excuse me,” the girl smiled brightly. “I didnt mean to use you as a wailing wall.”

“If you feel like talking,” Karen smiled, “you talk.” It was these young people, like this couple, and their courage and their levelheadedness, unsung unknown unheroized, that were making this country the great thing it was, that made the winning of