In the autumn of 1918, Jane, when she went home for week-ends, frequently
found one Oliver Hobart there. Oliver Hobart was the new editor of Lord
Pinkerton's chief daily paper, and had been exempted from military
service as newspaper staff. He was a Canadian; he had been educated at
McGill University, admired Lord Pinkerton, his press, and the British
Empire, and despised (in this order) the Quebec French, the Roman
Catholic Church, newspapers which did not succeed, Little Englanders, and
Lord Lansdowne.

'A really beautiful face,' said Lady Pinkerton, and so he had. Jane had
seen it, from time to time during the last year, when she had called to
see her father in the office of the _Daily Haste_.

One hot Saturday afternoon in August, 1918, she found him having tea with
her family, in the shadow of the biggest elm. Jane looked at them in her
detached way; Lord Pinkerton, neat and little, his white-spatted feet
crossed, his head cocked to one side, like an intelligent sparrow's; Lady
Pinkerton, tall and fair and powdered, in a lilac silk dress, her large
white hands all over rings, amethysts swinging from her ears; Clare (who
had given up nursing owing to the strain, and was having a rest), slim
and rather graceful, a little flushed from the heat, lying in a deck
chair and swinging a buckled shoe, saying something ordinary and
Clare-ish; Hobart sitting by her, a pale, Gibson young man, with his
smooth fair hair brushed back, and lavender socks with purple clocks, and
a clear, firm jaw. He was listening to Clare with a smile. You could not
help liking him; his was the sort of beauty which, when found in either
man or woman, makes so strong an appeal to the senses of the sex other
than that of the possessor that reason is all but swamped. Besides, as
Lord Pinkerton said, Hobart was a dear, nice fellow.