They watched the rapid course of the ball up and down the field, the scurry and scamper of the ponies after it, then the clash of a melee again.
Two ponies went down, and their riders were flung. When they arose, one of the least experienced boys limped apologetically from the field.
Avery rode to the barrier.
"I say, any of you fellows, don"t you want to try it? We"re just getting warmed up."
Harriet glanced at the group Avery had addressed; she knew nearly all of them--she knew too that none of them were likely to accept the invitation, and that Avery must be as well aware of that as she was.
Avery, indeed, scarcely glanced at them, but looked over to Eaton and gave the challenge direct.
"Care to take a chance?"
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 pa.s.sed 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.
For a few moments the play was all at the further edge of the field; then once more the ball crossed with a long curving shot and came hopping and rolling along the ground close to where she stood. Again Donald and Eaton raced for it.
"Stedman!" Avery called to a teammate to prepare to receive the ball after he had struck it; and he lifted his mallet to drive the ball away from in front of Eaton. But as Avery"s club was coming down, Eaton, like a flash and apparently without lifting his mallet at all, caught the ball a sharp, smacking stroke. It leaped like a bullet, straight and true, toward the goal, and before Avery could turn, Eaton was after it and upon it, but he did not have to strike again; it bounded on and on between the goal-posts, while together with the applause for the stranger arose a laugh at the expense of Avery. But as Donald halted before her, Harriet saw that he was not angry or discomfited, but was smiling triumphantly to himself; and as she called in praise to Eaton when he came close again, she discovered in him only dismay at what he had done.
The practice ended, and the players rode away. She waited in the clubhouse till Avery and Eaton came up from the dressing-rooms.
Donald"s triumphant satisfaction seemed to have increased; Eaton was silent and preoccupied. Avery, hailed by a group of men, started away; as he did so, he saluted Eaton almost derisively. Eaton"s return of the salute was openly hostile. She looked up at him keenly, trying unavailingly to determine whether more had taken place between the two men than she herself had witnessed.
"You had played polo before--and played it well," she charged. "Why did you want to pretend you hadn"t?"
He made no reply. As she began to talk of other things, she discovered with surprise that his manner toward her had taken on even greater formality and constraint than it had had since his talk with her father the day before.
The afternoon was not warm enough to sit outside; in the club-house were gathered groups of men and girls who had come in from the golf-course or from watching the polo practice. She found herself now facing one of these groups composed of some of her own friends, who were taking tea and wafers in the recess before some windows. They motioned to her to join them, and she could not well refuse, especially as this had been a part of her father"s instructions. The men rose, as she moved toward them, Eaton with her; she introduced Eaton; a chair was pushed forward for her, and two of the girls made a place for Eaton on the window-seat between them.
As they seated themselves and were served, Eaton"s partic.i.p.ation in the polo practice was the subject of conversation. She found, as she tried to talk with her nearer neighbors, that she was listening instead to this more general conversation which Eaton had joined. She saw that these people had accepted him as one of their own sort to the point of jesting with him about his "lucky" polo stroke for a beginner; his manner toward them was very different from what it had been just now to herself; he seemed at ease and unembarra.s.sed with them. One or two of the girls appeared to have been eager--even anxious--to meet him; and she found herself oddly resenting the att.i.tude of these girls. Her feeling was indefinite, vague; it made her flush and grow uncomfortable to recognize dimly that there was in it some sense of a proprietorship of her own in him which took alarm at seeing other girls attracted by him; but underneath it was her uneasiness at his new manner to herself, which hurt because she could not explain it. As the party finished their tea, she looked across to him.
"Are you ready to go, Mr. Eaton?" she asked.
"Whenever Mr. Avery is ready."
"You needn"t wait for him unless you wish; I"ll drive you back," she offered.
"Of course I"d prefer that, Miss Santoine."
They went out to her trap, leaving Donald to motor back alone. As soon as she had driven out of the club grounds, she let the horse take its own gait, and she turned and faced him.
"Will you tell me," she demanded, "what I have done this afternoon to make you cla.s.s me among those who oppose you?"
"What have you done? Nothing, Miss Santoine."
"But you are cla.s.sing me so now."
"Oh, no," he denied so unconvincingly that she felt he was only putting her off.
Harriet Santoine knew that what had attracted her friends to Eaton was their recognition of his likeness to themselves; but what had impressed her in seeing him with them was his difference. Was it some memory of his former life that seeing these people had recalled to him, which had affected his manner toward her?
Again she looked at him.
"Were you sorry to leave the club?" she asked.
"I was quite ready to leave," he answered inattentively.
"It must have been pleasant to you, though, to--to be among the sort of people again that you--you used to know. Miss Furden"--she mentioned one of the girls who had seemed most interested in him, the sister of the boy whose place he had taken in the polo practice--"is considered a very attractive person, Mr. Eaton. I have heard it said that a man--any man--not to be attracted by her must be forearmed against her by thought--or memory of some other woman whom he holds dear."
"She seemed very pleasant," he answered automatically.
"Only pleasant? You were forearmed, then," she said.
"I"m afraid I don"t quite understand."
The mechanicalness of his answer rea.s.sured her. "I mean, Mr.
Eaton,"--she forced her tone to be light,--"Miss Furden was not as attractive to you as she might have been, because there has been some other woman in your life--whose memory--or--or the expectation of seeing whom again--protected you."
"Has been? Oh, you mean before."
"Yes; of course," she answered hastily.
"No--none," he replied simply. "It"s rather ungallant, Miss Santoine, but I"m afraid I wasn"t thinking much about Miss Furden."
She felt that his denial was the truth, for his words confirmed the impression she had had when singing with him the night before. She drove on--or rather let the horse take them on--for a few moments during which neither spoke. They had come about a bend in the road, and the great house of her father loomed ahead. A motor whizzed past them, coming from behind. It was only Avery"s car on the way home; but Harriet had jumped a little in memory of the day before, and her companion"s head had turned quickly toward the car. She looked up at him swiftly; his lips were set and his eyes gazed steadily ahead after Avery, and he drew a little away from her. A catch in her breath--almost an audible gasp--surprised her, and she fought a warm impulse which had all but placed her hand on his.
"Will you tell me something, Miss Santoine?" he asked suddenly.
"What?"
"I suppose, when I was with Mr. Avery this afternoon, that if I had attempted to escape, he and the chauffeur would have combined to detain me. But on the way back here--did you a.s.sume that when you took me in charge you had my parole not to try to depart?"
"No," she said. "I don"t believe Father depended entirely on that."