As it happened, she met one of the others when she left the shop at five, and he took her out to tea at the most expensive tea place in London, which was always his way with tea and other things. He was on leave from France, and had met Evie for the first time three days ago, when she was out with Doye, whom he knew. His name was Hugh Montgomery Gordon, and he was the son of Sir Victor Gordon of Ellaby Hall in Kent, Prince's Mansions in Park Lane, and Gordon's Jam Factory in Hackney Wick. He was handsome in person, graceful, clear-featured, an old lawn-tennis blue, and a young man with great possessions, who, having been told on good authority that he would find it hard to enter into the kingdom of heaven, had renounced any idea of this enterprise he might otherwise have had, and devoted himself whole-heartedly to appreciating this world. He was in a cavalry regiment, and had come through the war so far cool, unruffled, unscathed, and mentioned in despatches. He had a faculty for serenely expecting and acquiring the best, in most departments of life, though in some (such as art, literature, and social ethics) he failed through ignorance and indifference. Meeting Evie Tucker in Bond Street, and perceiving, as he had perceived before, that her beauty was in a high class of merit, he was stirred by a desire to acquire her as a companion for tea, and did so. Evie liked him; he was really more in her line than Basil Doye (artists were queer, there was no getting round that, even if they had given it up for soldiering and had lost interest in it and fingers), and she liked the place where they had tea, and liked the tea and the cakes and the music, and liked him to drive to Clapton with her in a taxi afterwards. 'You don't seem economical, do you?' she remarked, as they whirred swiftly eastward. 'I hope not,' said Hugh Montgomery Gordon, in his slow, level tones. 'I can't stand economical people.' He left her at Violette and drove back to his club, feeling satisfied with himself and her. She was certainly a find, though it was a pity one had to go so far out into the wilderness to return her where she belonged. Her people were, no doubt, what his sister Myrtle would call quite imposs. 4 As Evie and Captain Gordon had taxied down Holborn, they had passed, and been held up for a minute near Alix, Nicholas, and West, who stood talking at the corner of Chancery Lane. 'Hugh Montgomery Gordon,' Nicholas murmured. 'Bright and beautiful as usual. Know him, Alix? Surely he doesn't visit at Violette? I can't picture it, somehow.' 'Oh, he might, for Evie's sake. Evie picks them up, you know; it's remarkable how she picks them up. They look very beautiful together, don't they? Is he nice?' 'Just as you saw. I scarcely know him more than that. He was a Hall man; my year. I believe he had a good time there. He looks as if he had a good time still. West's opinions about him are more pronounced than mine. Is he nice, West?'