what does "it had become a fad"mean? The widow stared after them. For an instant she paused indecisively on the bright blue carpet with the golden Presidential eagle worked into it; then she returned to the corridor and took a blind step toward them. Again she wavered. Sergeant Ayres stood at the forward end of the corridor. He was looking directly at her, and his heavy face, she saw, was ashen. The relentless tension of the past two hours was beginning to lift. The galley had been opened, and someone had ordered vegetable soup. Immediately it had become a fad. A half-dozen others had agreed that vegetable soup was just the thing. Now Johnson called for a bowl. In Marie Fehmer's words, he "just inhaled the soup and crackers—they were gone in a flash." Putting the dish aside he sighed, "It's been a year since I got up."