rything might have turned out very differently indeed--although
when I try to think just what other way it _could_ have turned out, I
don't quite know ... and I wonder, too, how much they knew, or
planned, before they sent me down there....

This much is sure: if I hadn't assumed that a 70-mile trip, with a
60-mile average speed limit, would take approximately an hour and a
half, and if I had realized that buying an automobile was not the same
simple process as buying a nightgown, I wouldn't have been late for my
luncheon appointment. And if I'd been there on time, I'd never have
made the date for that night. As it was, I started out at seven
o'clock in the morning, and only by exceeding the speed limit on the
last twenty miles of the return trip did I manage to pull into that
diner parking space at five minutes before two.

His car was still there!

It is so easy to look back and spot the instant of recognition or of
error. My relief when I saw his car ... my delight when I walked in
and saw and _felt_ his mixture of surprise and joy that I had come,
with disappointment and frustration because it was so late, and he had
to leave almost immediately. And my complete failure, in the midst of
the complexities of these inter-reactions, to think logically, or to
recognize that his ordinary perceptions were certainly the equivalent
of my own....

At that moment, I wasn't thinking _about_ any of these things. I spent
a delirious sort of five minute period absorbing his feelings about
me, and releasing my own at him. I hadn't planned to do it, not so
soon, not till I knew much more than I did--perhaps after another
week's reading and going about--but when he said that since I'd got
there so late for lunch, I'd _have_ to meet him for dinner, I found I
agreed with him perfectly.

* * * * *

That afternoon, I bought a dress. This, too, took a great deal of
time, even more than the car, because in the one case I simply had to
look at a number of component parts, and listen to the operation of
the motor, and feel for the total response of the mechanism, to
determine whether it was suitable or not--but in the other, I had
nothing to guide me but my own untrained taste, and the dubious
preferences of the salesgirl, plus what I _thought_ Larry's reactions
_might_ be. Also, I had to determine, without seeming too ignorant,
just what sort of dress might be suitable for a dinner date--and
without kno