purpose which had not been confided to herself either by
her father or Avery. For how could they have suspected that Eaton
would betray himself in the game unless they had also suspected that he
had played polo before? To suspect that, they must at least have some
theory as to who Eaton was. But her father had no such theory; he had
been expending unavailingly, so far, every effort to ascertain Eaton's
connections. So her thoughts led her only into deeper and greater
perplexity, but with them came sudden--and unaccountable--resentment
against Avery.

"Will you see what Mr. Avery is doing?" she said to the maid.

The girl went out and returned in a few moments. "He is with Mr.
Santoine."

"Thank you."

At seven Harriet went in to dinner with her father. The blind man was
now alone; he had been awaiting her, and they were served at once. All
through the dinner she was nervous and moody; for she knew she was
going to do something she had never done before: she was going to
conceal something from her father. She told herself it was not really
concealment, for Donald must have already told him. It was no more,
then, than that she herself would not inform upon Eaton, but would
leave that to Avery. So she told of Eaton's reception at the country
club, and of his taking part in the polo practice and playing badly;
but of her own impression that Eaton knew the game and her present
conviction that Donald Avery had seen even more than that, she said
nothing. She watched her father's face, but she could see there no
consciousness that she was omitting anything in her account.

An hour later, when after reading aloud to him for a time, he dismissed
her, she hesitated before going.

"You've seen Donald?" she asked.

"Yes."

"What did he tell you?"

"The same as you have told, though not quite so fully."

She was outside the door and in the hall before realization came to her
that her father's reply could mean only that Donald, like herself, had
concealed his discovery of Eaton's ability to play polo. She turned
back suddenly to return to her father; then again she hesitated,
stopped with her hand upon the blind man's door by her recollection of
Donald's enmity to Eaton. Why Donald had not told, she could not
imagine; the only conclusion she could reach was that Donald's silence
in some way menaced Eaton; for--suddenly now--it came to her what this
must mean to Eaton. All that Eaton had been so careful to hi