Chapter XVIII

Through Bubbles, Harry West received the happy news that Miss Ferris wished to speak with him. But when he saw her with the vase of jonquils in her hand, and the empty box in which they had come at her feet, his stout heart failed him a little.

"Mr. West," said Barbara, "some person is annoying me."

"Annoying you?"

"I am continually receiving flowers without card or comment."

"Is it the flowers which annoy you or the lack of comment?"

"I love the flowers, but anything in the shape of anonymity is unfair, and I resent it."

"I can think of cases," said West, "in which a man might properly send flowers without disclosing his identity--just as I may pass a fine statue and praise it, without telling the statue who I am." He smiled.

"Flowers don't resemble statues in the least, and your comparison is unnaturally far-fetched. Another thing, and this annoys me even more: my secretive friend sends flowers from the cheapest florist he can find. I argue from this that he is poor, and cannot afford to send me flowers at all."

"Perhaps his home and business in the city are too far from the Fifth Avenue shops."

"You are not saying gallant things, Mr. West. I--an unprotected young woman--tell you that I am being annoyed by a strange man. Instead of flying into a chivalrous rage and threatening to wring his neck when you catch him, you stand up for him. Very well. I shall set Bubbles to find out who the man is, and take my own steps in the matter."

Her expression was grave and unruffled, though a certain look of amusement might have been detected in her eyes, by a youth less embarrassed than Mr. West was.

"Don't do that," he said; "Bubbles could never find out. You wish to know who is sending you flowers?"

"Very much. Can _you_ find out?"

"I think so. I mean, I'm sure I can."

"And when you have found him will you point out to him that in the future he must be open and above-board, or something disagreeable will be done to him?"

Mr. West bowed humbly.

"How long," she asked, "will it take you to run the creature down?"

"Well," said Mr. West, "I could go to the florist whose name is on the box, show my badge, and exact a description of the man who bought the flowers. Then I could give you the description, and if you knew any such man--"

"The florist," said Barbara, her expression Sphinx-like, "is just 'round the corner."

"I hear," said Mr. West, "and I obey."

"I will read a book till you come back," said Barbara.

But she didn't read a book; she leaned instead from a window and watched for Mr. West to come out of the studio-building. He came presently, but did not turn east in search of the florist. Neither did he descend the steps. Instead, he took out his watch and sat down, and waited. Barbara in great glee watched him for ten minutes. She was possessed of a devilish longing to fashion out of paper a small water-bomb and drop it on his head. Memories of water-bombs brought up memories of Wilmot Allen and old days. She drew back from the window and was no longer gleeful. Why should men trouble her heart, since she wished and had elected to live, not a woman's life but a man's? She paced the studio, her soul at odds with the rest of her.

Had she ever encouraged Wilmot? Yes. West? Yes. And about a dozen others. And here she struck her left palm with her right fist. She had even encouraged a man who had committed all the crimes in the calendar and was only half a man at that! Half a man? She was not sure. There was a certain compelling force about him which at times made him seem more of a man to her than all the rest of them put together. "I can't imagine him in love," she thought. "It's really too revolting. But if he was, I can imagine nothing that he would let stand in his way, I wonder if he is married. And if he is I pity her. And yet she could say to other women, 'My husband is a man,' and most of the women I know can't say that."

And she remembered her father's perfectly ridiculous suggestion that perhaps the man so wronged by him had lifted his eyes to herself. The idea no longer seemed ridiculous; but quite possible and equally dreadful. She made up her mind that she would sacrifice her immediate chances of recognition and fame and tell the beggar to discontinue his visits. Then she withdrew the cloth from her work, and it seemed to her that what she had made was alive and had about it a certain sublimity, and that to surrender now was beyond her strength. She had a moment of exultation, and she thought: "In a hundred years my body will be dust. It doesn't matter what becomes of it now or hereafter; but people will gather in front of this head, and artists will come from all over the world to see it. And there will be plaster casts of it in city museums and village libraries. And I suppose I'm the most conceited idiot in the world, but--but it's good. I _know_ it's good!"

She had forgotten West, and Allen, and Blizzard, so that when the first-named knocked, she had some ado to come out of the clouds and recall what they had been talking about. Then, not wishing to drive West into a lie, she said only:

"Have you the man's description?"

"He is not," said West gravely, "a man in your station in life. He is, I imagine, some young fellow to whom, in passing, you have been carelessly gracious."

"Is he handsome?" Mischief had returned to her mind.

"He is only bigger and stronger than usual."

"Dark or light?"

"Medium."

"And how long did it take you to find out all these interesting items?"

"Twelve minutes," said West gravely.

"By the clock?"

"By a dollar watch.... Miss Ferris, I haven't done right. I'm not doing right."

This came very suddenly. He had lowered his fine head and was frowning,

"I'm the man who's been sending you flowers. I didn't know it was wrong. I'm not a gentleman. But once I'd seen you, I could never see flowers without thinking of you, so I kept sending them, hoping that they would give you pleasure for their own sake. I had no business even to look at you. To win the kind of race I'm up against, a man ought to keep his eyes in the boat, and not look right or left till his race is won or lost. And even then it ought to be right or left that he looks, and not up, and certainly not down. I didn't keep my eyes in the boat. I looked up, 'way up, and saw you, and 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 want to go. Men attract you to a certain extent. I can almost feel that--and you tire of them, and think it's because you haven't got the capacity for really caring. That isn't true either. You have infinite capacities for caring, but as yet you haven't been attracted to the man you are really going to care for."

Barbara looked him straight in the eyes. "How do you know I haven't?"

He returned the look, as if doubting what he should say or do. Then he drew a deep breath to steady himself.

"Perhaps you have. But I know very well that it is not the man you think, at this moment. You are in the hunting stage, and you didn't know it. Now that you do know--unless I am greatly mistaken--I think you will try very hard not to hurt people, not to let them have wild dreams of something doing in the future."

"But if I really think--"

"Then be secret until you _know_."

"And if everything that is me seems to be going out to a certain man--"

"Then be secret until it has really gone out to him."

"I don't know why I let you talk to me like this."

"There you go again," he said, and she bit her lips. "It is very awful for me," he said, "to think that I have raised my voice in any criticism or disparagement of you."

"Oh, it's all true, and it's all deserved."

"But you are like that. And all at the same time it's your greatest strength and your greatest weakness, and for the right man, when he comes along, it will be his greatest treasure.... I don't like to say good-by. It comes hard."

"If I said, 'Don't say good-by,' would I be breaking the rules?"

"Yes," he said, "for I could never be the right man."

"Not even if--"

"Not even if--and you will have forgotten any kindness that you felt for me, while I am still wondering why the city is so empty, that once seemed so full."

The tears sprang into Barbara's eyes. "Is there anything about me that you don't know?" she asked bitterly.

"Oh, yes," he said.

"Do you know that if you asked me to marry you, I should say yes?"

"And I know that I am not going to ask you. There are two reasons. You don't love me. And I do love you."

Her arms dropped limply to her sides.

"And it shall never be said of me," he said proudly, "that I dragged any one down.... Will you promise me something?"

"If you care to trust me to keep promises or to do anything that's right and honest."

"Only promise to keep your eyes in the boat. Don't help a poor dog of a man into love with you. And don't help yourself into love with him. When the right man comes along, he will _make_ you love him, and then you will be sure."

"I will promise," said Barbara simply, "and I never knew how rotten I was. And I'm glad you've told me. If it's any comfort to you--you've helped. And nobody ever helped before. I shall always be proud to remember that you loved me. And I'll keep my eyes in the boat."

"And that," said Mr. West, "is where I'll keep mine, only, if it's nothing to you, I'll remember sometimes how the moon looked that time I looked up."

She stood uncertain.

"It's kind of awkward," he said, "sometimes to make a clean break. Good luck to you. And don't feel sorry about me. And be true to yourself. And if you ever really need me for anything tell Bubbles. He knows where to find me, when anybody does."

A few minutes later Barbara was asking Bubbles if he happened to know Mr. Harry West's address.

"He won't be coming back here," she said, "and I want to send him a book."

"I'll deliver it," said Bubbles. "He don't keep no regular address. You have to catch him on the run."

"Very well," she said, "take him this, with my very best thanks and my very best wishes."

And she gave Bubbles a charmingly bound copy of Rostand's "Far-Away Princess," and when Bubbles had trotted off, she dropped into her chair and cried because she thought she had broken poor West's heart. But there was stern stuff in his heart, and exultation, for he knew that in the supreme test of his life, he had thought only of--her.