Harriet Santoine watched her companion; a sudden flush had come to his face which vanished, as she turned, and left him almost pale; but his eyes glowed. Avery's manner in challenging him, as though he must refuse from fear of such a fall as he just had witnessed, was not enough to explain Eaton's start. "How can I?" he returned. "If you want to play, you can," Avery dared him. "Furden"--that was the boy who had just been hurt--"will lend you some things; his'll just about fit you; and you can have his mounts." Harriet continued to watch Eaton; the challenge had been put so as to give him no ground for refusal but timidity. "You don't care to?" Avery taunted him deftly. "Why don't you try it?" Harriet found herself saying to him. He hesitated. She realized it was not timidity he was feeling; it was something deeper and stronger than that. It was fear; but so plainly it was not fear of bodily hurt that she moved instinctively toward him in sympathy. He looked swiftly at Avery, then at her, then away. He seemed to fear alike accepting or refusing to play; suddenly he made his decision. "I'll play." He started instantly away to the dressing-rooms; a few minutes later, when he rode onto the field, Harriet was conscious that, in some way, Eaton was playing a part as he listened to Avery's directions. Then the ball was thrown in for a scrimmage, and she felt her pulses quicken as Avery and Eaton raced side by side for the ball. Eaton might not have played polo before, but he was at home on horseback; he beat Avery to the ball but, clumsy with his mallet, he missed and overrode; Avery stroked the ball smartly, and cleverly followed through. But the next instant, as Eaton passed her, shifting his mallet in his hand, Harriet watched him more wonderingly. "He could have hit that ball if he'd wanted to," she declared almost audibly to herself; and the impression that Eaton was pretending to a clumsiness which was not real grew on her. Donald Avery appointed himself to oppose Eaton wherever possible, besting him in every contest for the ball; but she saw that Donald now, though he took it upon himself to show all the other players where they made their mistakes, did not offer any more instruction to Eaton. One of the players drove the ball close to the barrier directly before Harriet; Eaton and Avery raced for it, neck by neck. As before, Eaton by better riding gained a little; as they came up, she saw Donald's attention was not upon the ball or the play; instead, he was watching Eaton closely. And she realized suddenly that Donald had appreciated as fully as herself that Eaton's clumsiness was a pretense. It was no longer merely polo the two were playing; Donald, suspecting or perhaps even certain that Eaton knew the game, was trying to make him show it, and Eaton was watchfully avoiding this. Just in front of her, Donald, leaning forward, swept the ball from in front of Eaton's pony's feet.