Holder, William "Strange Woman"

A Collier’s one-page “short, short story.” An ex-serviceman waits at a New York City pier for his English war bride to disembark from a large liner (possibly either the QUEEN MARY or QUEEN ELIZABETH): “The big ship had been tied up for more than an hour, and the passengers were coming ashore. There was none of the hysteria that had attended his own homecoming months before, George noted. It was much nice this way.” While waiting, the man worries whether his brief memories of his wife are too romantic and possibly unrealistic. In an emotionally satisfying denouement, however, he realizes that “the picture in his mind had been a true picture, and only the doubts false.”