That was a lie. I had plenty of things to do, including a date with the captain of a visiting women's track team from Finland. Strangely, my people and I were in full agreement on standing up the chesty Finn, let the javelins fall where they may. Henry was surprised too. "You are going to wait for her? Uh. Well now, Mr. Barth, your reputation--ah--that is, she's only a child, you know, from the country." The buzzer on his desk sounded. His secretary spoke up on the intercom. "Miss Reede is here." Miss Reede came right on in the door without waiting for a further invitation. We stood there gaping at each other. She was small, about 5'2" maybe, with short, black, curly hair, surface-cool green eyes with fire underneath, fresh, freckled nose, slim figure. Boyish? No. Not boyish. I stared, taking in every little detail. Every little detail was perfect and--well, I can't begin to describe it. That was for me. I could feel it all through me, she was what I had been waiting for, dreaming of. I made a quick call on the inside switchboard, determined to fight to override the veto I was sure was coming. I called. No answer. For the first time, I got no regular answer. Of course, by now I always had a kind of a sense or feeling of what was going on. This time there was a feeling of a celebration, rejoicing, everybody on a holiday. Which was exactly the way I felt as I looked at the girl. No objections? Then why ask questions? "Julia," old Henry Schnable was saying, "this is Mr. John Barth. John, this is--John! John, remember----" I had reached out and taken the girl's hand. I tucked her arm in mine and she looked up at me with the light, the fire in the green depths swimming toward the surface. I didn't know what she saw in me--neither of us knew then--but the light was there, glowing. We walked together out of Henry Schnable's office. "John! Julia, your papers! You have to sign----" Business? We had business elsewhere, she and I. "Where?" I asked her in the elevator. It was the first word either of us had spoken. "My apartment," she said in a voice like a husky torch song. "It's close. The girl who rooms with me is spending the week back home with her folks. The show she was in closed. We can be alone." We could. Five minutes in a cab and we were. I never experienced anything remotely like it in all my life. I never will again. And then there was the time afterwards, and then we knew. It was late afternoon, turning to dusk. She lifted up on one elbow and half turned away from me to switch on the bedside lamp. The light came on and I looked down at her, lovingly, admiringly. Idly, I started to ask her, "How did you get those little scars on your leg there and ... those little scars? Like buckshot! Julia! Once, along about ten years ago--you must have been a little girl then--in the mountains--sure. You were hit by a meteor, weren't you??" She turned and stared at me. I pointed at my own little pockmark scars.