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230 "Will you tell me," she demanded, "what I have done this afternoon to make you class me among those who oppose you?"

"What have you done? Nothing, Miss Santoine."

"But you are classing 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."