"Surely, Kim," and, breaking out of the crowd, they strolled out into the grounds. Not a word was said until they were seated upon a broad, low bench beneath the spreading foliage of a tree.
Then: "What did you come here for tonight, Mac—the real reason?" he demanded, abruptly.
"I ... me ... you ... I mean—Oh, skip it!" the girl stammered, a wave of scarlet flooding her face and down even to her superb, bare shoulders. Then she steadied herself and went on: "You see, I agree with you—as you say, I check you to nineteen decimals. Even Dr. Lacy, with all his knowledge, can be slightly screwy at times, I think."
"Oh, so that's it!" It was not, it was only a very minor part of her reason; but the nurse would have bitten her tongue off rather than admit that she had come to that dance solely and only because Kimball Kinnison was to be there. "You knew, then, that this was old Lacy's idea?"
"Of course. You would never have come, else. He thinks that you may begin wobbling on the beam pretty soon unless you put out a few braking jets."
"And you?"
"Not in a million, Kim. Lacy is as cockeyed as Trenco's ether, and I as good as told him so. He may wobble a bit, but you won't. You've got a job to do, and you're doing it. You'll finish it, too, in spite of all the vermin infesting all the galaxies of the macro-cosmic Universe!" she finished, passionately.
"Klono's brazen whiskers, Mac!" He turned suddenly and stared intently down into her wide, gold-flecked, tawny eyes. She stared back for a moment, then looked away.
"Don't look at me like that!" she almost screamed. "I can't stand it—you make me feel stark naked! I know that your Lens is off—I'd simply die if it wasn't—but I think that you're a mind-reader, even without it!"