Marjorie accepts that she will not succeed as a professional actress, and spends more of her time reading and working. Noel takes and quits stable writing and editing jobs, blaming Marjorie for motivating him to take jobs that do not suit him and for his unhappiness. He flees New York in a panic rather than marry Marjorie, saying that he will not succeed as a writer and will return to studying philosophy. Having entered a sexual relationship with him, Marjorie is convinced that her only hope is to marry Noel. She decides that the best way to persuade him to marry her is to wait a year and then pursue him to Paris. However, en route to France, Marjorie meets a mysterious man named Mike Eden aboard the Queen Mary. She enjoys his company, he treats her well and speaks respectfully of her religious traditions, and he helps her locate Noel. In Paris, Noel tells her how happy he is to see her, but does not notice when she is hungry or hurt. He tells her that in his year in Paris he has not actually enrolled in school to study philosophy, and that he will return to the U.S. to take another stable writing job. He offers to marry her, but Marjorie has realized that life with Noel will not make her happy, and that it would be possible for her to fall in love with someone else. She returns to New York free of her infatuation with Noel, and quickly marries, no longer caring whether Noel would describe her as a "Shirley". The novel concludes with an epilogue in the form of an entry in the diary of Wally Wronken, the only character who did manage to have a successful artistic career. Wally idolized Marjorie as a young man, and meets her again 15 years after she marries, when she has happily settled into a role as a religious suburban wife and mother. Wally recalls the bright-eyed girl he once knew, and marvels at how ordinary Marjorie seems at 39. The character name Airman is a translation to English of the Yiddish word luftmensch. The critic Dan Vogel writes that Wouk casts Noel as a "rasha" or bad or Satanic figure for leading Majorie in a descent from violating traditional Jewish laws of kashrut or kosher laws to violating traditional values of sexual morality. Reception Marjorie Morningstar spent