Margaret laughed. At first, it was a snicker as she held back something far more guttural out of politeness. But keeping it in was hurting her chest, and at last, she let it out. And then she heard the same from Dottie.

“What? What, you two? You’re finding this funny?”

“Oh my word,” Margaret sputtered between breaths. “If I was a betting woman, I don’t think I ever would have pegged you for dating an old-fashioned gentleman.”

Gladys’s cheeks grew red and they puffed out. “You can’t help who you fall in love with, can you? It’s like…it’s like one of those lightning strikes. Completely random.”

But Margaret recalled her conversation with him on the dance floor. Whether he was as sincerely reticent as he professed to be or whether this was part of a strategy to get her to make the first move, it was clearly a flawless plan, because it had worked. He knew Gladys lived life on her own terms. If he’d made advances of a more serious nature toward her, it would have put him in the same stead as every other man who’d tried and failed to get together with Gladys. If he held off, he’d almost guarantee that she would take things into her own hands. And not just for a fling, which would surely extinguish as soon as Gladys grew bored. He had long-term hopes that were about to come to fruition.

“So how did this end in a marriage proposal?” asked Dottie once they’d all calmed their voices.

The cook slipped in almost imperceptivity and exchanged their plates for steaming bowls of sumptuous-smelling beef and vegetable stew. Margaret’s eyes closed in near ecstasy at the scent but didn’t comment so as not to sidetrack Gladys again.

Gladys picked up her soup spoon and continued. “I’ll tell you, but don’t think that I proposed because I wanted to get him into bed. I’m not that dumb.”

“I wasn’t suggesting it,” said Dottie.

“It was when he told me that he’s going back to England at the end of the war. And then who knows where. It could be somewhere else in Europe. Or Asia. Or Africa. Wherever they want a reporter who is unencumbered enough to go wherever they send him. Or who has a wife who would travel with him.”

“And this prompted the proposal?”

“It did.” She shrugged. “It’s as simple as that. When he told me his plans, I realized how much I would miss him.” She wiped her eyes with her right hand and Margaret didn’t dare make a mention of it. In all their years of friendship, she couldn’t ever recall seeing Gladys get sentimental. Best to let her have this moment.