Page "romance" Paragraph 169

She felt, rather than saw, the approach of the good-looking young man.

He came through from the Fleet Bar, which was stag, with the ice cubes tinkling in a glass he carried.

When he saw Tommy sitting alone, the tinkling sound stopped.

He was perhaps a trifle tipsy, having been long at sea where drinking is not permitted, and consequently out of practice ; ;

he wore a brown tweed sports jacket obviously tailored in Hong Kong, and he was of an age that marked him as a lieutenant.

Probably off one of the carriers -- an aviator.

There was a fifty-fifty chance, perhaps, that he would be unmarried, and an even more slender chance that his approach would be different.

Japan did something to a man -- and it wasn't just Japan, either, because the same thing applied anywhere overseas.

It was as if foreign duty implied and excused license ; ;

it intimated that the folks at home would never know about it, and, therefore, why not??