They had met at a street corner in New York City where she was waiting for the sound of traffic to abate so that she could cross. He was on the opposite side, and with his extraordinary eyesight and intuition instantly recognized that the beautiful, odd-looking girl facing him on the other side of the street was blind. He was at her side before the light—and the sound of traffic—had changed, and said, "I hope you don't think I'm being forward, but let me offer you my arm. Taxis have a way of making illegal turns sometimes...."
"You are very kind," she replied, pulling him back from the path of a taxi making an illegal turn. "You have a very nice voice," she said as they got to the other side. "I guess being blind makes one ... forward!" She laughed and started to walk on.
"No, please wait!" he said, and caught up with her. "I wish you hadn't said that. It can be taken in another way: that I am forward because you are blind. I should like to say that you have a very nice voice."
She stopped and laughed again. "That's one of the nicest things I've ever had said to me!"
"Do let's ... I mean would you let me...." He floundered, and laughed, too. "Can't we have a drink together? Now?"
"I think it would be lovely," she said.
Later on, he said to her, "You may think this impertinent of me, but you make me envy you. If I were braver, I should wish that I were blind. You actually see more than I do."
Katherine was intrigued. She had been told this before, but always with mystical and pseudo-religious implications. This man, with the attractive voice and smell, had no trace of the mystic.
"Let me tell you a fable to illustrate what I mean," he went on. "There was a man who was born blind, and he went to work as a coal miner because the darkness was no hindrance to him. One day while he was working alone in an unlighted gallery, his sight was miraculously given to him.... He shouted out in amazement and awe, and the other miners came stumbling to him in the total darkness.