"Because I want to be fair," said Burke. "I'm a sort of crackpot. You've noticed it, of course."
Sandy considered.
"No-o-o-o," she said measuredly. "I think you're pretty normal, except—No. I think you're all right."
"Unfortunately," he told her, "I'm not. Ever since I was a kid I've been bothered by a delusion, if that's what it is. It doesn't make sense. It couldn't. But it made me take up engineering, I think, and ..."
His voice trailed away.
"And what?"
"Made an idiot out of me," said Burke. "I was always pretty crazy about you, and it seems to me that I took you to a lot of dances and such in high school, but I couldn't act romantic. I wanted to, but I couldn't. There was this crazy delusion...."
"I wondered, a little," said Sandy, smiling.
"I wanted to be romantic about you," he told her urgently. "But this damned obsession kept me from it."
"Are you offering to be a brother to me now?" asked Sandy.