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“Major Bartlett’s the one who owns the chain of filling stations, sir.”
    General Webster relaxed. “God, what an army!” he sighed.
    We drove up to the deluxe Japanese hotel which housed the Officers Club and I could sense the general becoming excited at the prospect of surprising me with Eileen. As a matter of fact, I got pretty steamed up myself because I hadn’t seen Eileen for more than a year. Nervously I slapped my wallet for good luck and started up the marble steps.
    A Japanese bellhop greeted the general. A Japanese bell captain handed him some papers. A Japanese elevator operator took us briskly up to the general’s suite and a Japanese chambermaid hurried down the hall ahead of us. A Japanese butler opened the door for us, grinning happily, and a Japanese housemaid bowed almost to the floor, honoring the general.
    I stood at attention, waiting for the tall library doors to open, and I remember saying to myself, “Now look, squarehead, you’ve got to act surprised.” But I didn’t need the coaching, for Eileen appeared unexpectedly from the hallway and she was twice as lovely as I had remembered. “Wow!” I cried, hurrying to her, and I noticed that she was more what you might call curved, more lovely when she smiled.
    She hurried to meet me and we kissed and I said, “Wow! what a wonderful way to bring a man back from Korea!” and she said, “I wanted to cable you the minute the Army said I could come, but Mother said, ‘We’ll surprise him.’ ”
    Mrs. Webster interrupted, “We didn’t want to take your mind off your flying,” she said.
    Eileen asked, “Was it pretty rough this time?”
    “They’ve got the first team playing.”
    I held her two hands tightly and stepped back to study her. “Hair fixed differently, eh? Oh, that beautiful blond hair when everyone out here has black. And your dress…It seems to go in and out a lot—nice.”
    “It’s meant to go in and out.” Eileen laughed. “I go in and out.”
    General Webster coughed and I said, “You’re much prettier than any photograph you sent me—except maybe that special one in the bathing suit. Boy, did that one go in and out!”
    Eileen said, “That one was all out. I weighed eight pounds more that summer!”
    General Webster said, “Do you suppose we could go down and eat?”
    But Mrs. Webster was enjoying the romantic scene she had arranged and said, “First we’ll drink to the young lovers.” She produced a set of shimmering wine glasses and explained, “From the P.X. The little Japanese salesclerk said they were made right here in Kobe.”
    General Webster poured the sherry and declaimed dramatically, “To the lovers!” Then he looked at his wife and complained, “What an ugly phrase! Aren’t lovers French people who live in an attic and never get married?”
    “No!” Eileen cried. “Lovers are people in an English movie who live in a grass cottage and the vicar’s wife condemns them.”
    “Very unpleasant word, anyway.” He poured fresh sherry and said, “To Major Lloyd Gruver and Eileen Webster, United States Air Force. That sounds a damned sight more American and a damned sight more healthy.”
    Mrs. Webster laughed. “You’re right, Mark, but
lovers
has another perfectly good meaning too. Average American people whatever their ages who love each other—even when they’ve been married twenty-six years.” She went over and kissed the general warmly.
    My own father and mother had never gotten along together too well and from about ten on I realized that no matter what great advancements my father received and no matter how ordinary Mark Webster’s career turned out, my parents envied the Websters because Mark and Nancy were in love while my father and mother were not. Sometimes Father would betray his contempt for Mark Webster’s willingness to be pushed around by his wife, and my mother, who came from a famous German family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, usually stayed there with her circle