Louisa, a member of the Women's Army Corps, sits down at a diner to have her dinner when she is interrupted by the arrival of a man who sits down in the booth facing her. She is obviously uncomfortable, but does not say anything, hoping that the man perceives her discomfort and leaves by himself. He reassures her that his intention is not to embarrass her. The man shows her his identification, and she is surprised to see that he was a major in her own unit, a fighter pilot who seems devastated by the toll that the war has taken on him. He reveals to her that he was injured in England for a while, but is now reeling from the news that his younger brother was reported missing in France. Louisa herself has lost someone - a man she intended to marry, named Rab - but she cannot bring herself to feel sorry for this man. Army propaganda about duty and sacrifice comes to mind, and she begins to be consumed by her own heartlessness. The man says he has no family of his own to bear the loss with, and Louisa is even more shocked at this because she knows that her own family had been invaluable to her when she lost Rab. The man sitting across from her grows more and more hopeless. He asks her to come home with him, an offer she declines because Louisa has begun to see herself as more of a soldier than a woman, even though the cost of this distinction seems to be the loss of her ability to grieve. As she pays the check and leaves the diner, the man follows her home, and she helps him out of a sense of shame. But when they arrive at her apartment, she flees, leaving him standing there alone. Louisa justifies this dreadful abandonment by telling herself that he needs to learn how to grieve just as everyone else did.