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Show 76 the hasty ancountars the Army was used to it was exuberant, full, joyous - not a furtive clutching in a dingy room. All this lay silent within him, causing him to act mora instinctivaly than rationally. Each evsning he waited, she arrived, thay lsft, hs drovs down the Hondori. At tha block-liks building hs haltsd, and finding his arms frss was tamptad to take har into them; but always she was hasty and slipped out so adroitly that thsrs was no chanca. She looked back in, smiling the gBntls, solsmn smils that held an elemsnt he could not translate, and as she walked away he drove back to the post in a delirium of love and frustration. And tha next morning the doubts that strike even tha most attractive came forward. Maybs shs didn't liks him. Ths dis-tancs bstwsBn ths Amaricans and the Japanese was wider than the Pacific; cartainly she didn't help him out -- with the small gssturss, ths turnings, that ease a man's approach. But maybs -- his natural magnanimity caused him to take the blams on himsslf -- something in him kspt ths affair on dsad-csntsr. His awkwardnsss, his inability to think up witty rsmarks. And hs rssolvsd, ths nsxt night, to sparkls, to draw her out - instsad of which hs found his wit frESZB into stuttars, and he was distracted into trying for a glimpss of her shy, obliqus face. Hs found his arms yearning toward har, and with so much emotion at loose ballast ha was more maladroit than ever. Thsn as hs sank toward dsspair hs rscsivsd a smils that, had hs bsEn compossd snough to notics, would hava rsvealed a turmoil as deep as his. |