"What is it?" she asked. "Can't you tell me?"
"Someday I'll tell you," I said. "But not now. I've a feeling we'll meet again. Where and how and when I don't know, because by this time tomorrow I'll be on my way to Mars."
A pained look came into her eyes and she quickly released my hand.
"But we've just started to get acquainted," she protested. "You know nothing about me—or hardly anything. I thought—"
"It might be best not to know," I said, and I think she must have realized then just how it was, must have read the truth in my eyes, for a faint flush suffused her face and she said quickly: "All right. If that's the way it must be."
I nodded and beckoned to the waiter, hoping she wouldn't suspect how vulnerable I still was, how dangerously easy it would have been for me to alter my decision.
Ten minutes later I was alone again, with Lake Michigan glimmering at my back, and only the stars for company. And I still didn't know her name.
[3]
It happened so suddenly it would have taken me completely by surprise, if the alarm bell hadn't started ringing again in some shadowy corner of my mind. It wasn't clamorous this time, but it was loud enough to make me straighten in alarm, with every nerve alert.