红玫瑰的考验 Appointment with Love
S.L.基舍/S.L.kishor
Six minutes to six,said the clock over the information booth in New Yorks Grand Central Station.The tall,young Army lieutenant lifted his sunburned face and narrowed his eyes to note the exact time.His heart was pounding with a beat.In six minutes he would see the woman who had filled such a special place in his life for the past 13 months,the woman he had never seen,yet whose written words had sustained him unfailingly.
Lieutenant Blandford remembered one day in particular,during the worst of the fighting,when his plane had been caught in the midst of a pack of enemy planes.In one of his letters he had confessed to her that be often felt fear,and only a few days before this battle he had received her answer:“Of course you fear……all brave men do.Next time you doubt yourself,I want you to hear my voice reciting to you:‘Yeah,though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,I shall fear no evil:for thou art with me.’……”He had remembered,and it had renewed his strength.
Now he was going to hear her real voice.Four minutes to six.
A girl passed close to him,and Lieutenant Blandford started.She was wearing a flower,but it was not the little red rose they had agreed upon.Besides,this girl was only about 18，and Hollis Meynell had told him she was 30.“What of it?”he had answered.“Im 32.”He was 29.
His mind went back to that book he had read in the training camp.Of Human Bondage it was;and throughout the book were notes in a woman’s handwriting.He had never believed that a woman could see into a man’s heart so tenderly,so understandingly.Her name was on the book plate:Hollis Meynell.He had got hold of a New York City telephone book and found her address.He had written,she had answered.Next day he had been shipped out,but they had gone on writing.
For 13 months she had faithfully replied.When his letters did not arrive,she wrote anyway,and now he believed that he loved her and that she loved him.