"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."