She had the same room—a warm luxurious chamber, high up in the Golden Apple Hotel. Lyddy herself was the same, too, just as he remembered her.
Afterward, as they lay together in the blackness, she asked, "Can you see in the dark, Captain?"
He was surprised, and then, thinking about it, not so surprised. "Of course not, no more than you can! Whatever made you ask that?"
"I—feel like somebody's looking at me."
He rolled over on his side, so his body was as far away from hers as possible. He didn't want her to feel the sudden rise of tension in him. Something's got to be done about this, he thought. I can't put up with it now.
"Why don't you say anything, honey?" her anxious voice came out of the darkness.
"Will you marry me, Lyddy?" he said.
He could hear the intake of her breath. "Ask me again in the morning," she told him wearily. He knew what she must be thinking: Men who hadn't had a woman for a long time sometimes did strange things. In the morning, she would wake up and he would be gone.
Only, when morning came, he was still there. Two weeks later, they were married.