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.”