It was just as well.

Fairchild could have said nothing that would have helped matters.

He could have done nothing that would have damaged them.

The cards were still the same; the deck still bore its markings, and the deal was going on without ever a change, except that now the matter of concealment of enmities had turned to an open, aboveboard proposition.

Whether Harry had so intended it or not, he had forced Squint Rodaine to show his hand, and whether Squint realized it, that amounted to something.