nd caught a crab that threw the whole boat
out of trim. I've no excuse, only this--that I haven't ever before even
looked right or left or down. But it's all right now. Nobody's hurt. I
won't come any more to watch over you. The lines are closing round
Blizzard, and he knows it. His claws are pulled. He's got to toe a
chalk-line, and you're as safe with him as with the Bishop of London."

Barbara said nothing. She felt very unhappy.

"One thing more. As long as I did forget the work in hand, as long as I
did look up, why, I'd like to thank God, in your presence, that it was
you I saw. Because in all the whole world there is nobody so beautiful
or so blind."

He thrust out his hand almost roughly, caught hers, said good-by, and
turned to go.

"Please wait," said Barbara. And she said it quite contrary to reason,
which told her that it would be kinder to let the young man go
without comments.

"You've done nothing wrong," she went on, "and I can't help being
pleased by the flowers and knowing that you think I am all sorts of
things that I'm not. If you really like me a good deal, don't go away
looking as if the world had come to an end. I think you are a fine
person, and I shall always be glad to be your friend."

There was agony in West's eyes. "My friendship," he said, "can never be
any special pleasure to you. And seeing you--even once a year--would
keep alive things that hurt me, and that never ought to have been born,
and that were better dead."

"'Faint heart--'" Barbara began, and could have bitten out her tongue,
since she had so often promised herself that she would never again
encourage anybody.

The agony died in Harry West's eyes, and there came instead a look of
great gentleness, compassion, and understanding.

"May I say things to you that are none of my business?" he asked. She
nodded briefly, and he went on: "You mustn't say things like that. You
have a race to row, too, but your beautiful eyes are all over
the place!"

"I knew I was a rotter," said Barbara, "but I didn't know it was obvious
to everybody."

"To eyes," said West gently, "in a certain condition lots of things are
obvious that other people wouldn't see. May I still say things?"

"Don't spare me."

"You love to attract men. And if you happen to hurt them, you think you
are a rotter. That isn't true. You're being pulled two ways. Art pulls
you one--the way you _think_ you want to go--and nature pulls you the
way you really wan