hear things which you do not hear otherwise."
LORD BEACONSFIELD, _Lothair_.

The Cardinal was much to be pitied. He had a real genius for society,
and thoroughly enjoyed such forms of it as his health and profession
permitted. Though he could not dine with Mr. Putney Giles, he went to
Mrs. Putney Giles's evening party, where he made an important
acquaintance. He looked in at Lady St. Jerome's after dinner; and his
visits to Vauxe and to Muriel Towers were fraught with memorable
results.

Mrs. Putney Giles, though a staunch Protestant, was delighted to receive
a Cardinal, and not less so that he should meet in her drawing-room the
inexpressibly magnificent Lothair. That is all in the course of nature;
but what has always puzzled me is the ease with which a youth of no
particular pretensions, arriving in London from Oxford or Cambridge or
from a country home, swims into society, and finds himself welcomed by
people whose names he barely knows. I suppose that in this, as in more
important matters, the helpers of the social fledgling are good-natured
women. The fledgling probably starts by being related to one or two, and
acquainted with three or four more; and each of them says to a friend
who entertains--"My cousin, Freddy Du Cane, is a very nice fellow, and
waltzes capitally. Do send him a card for your dance"--or "Tommy Tucker
is a neighbour of ours in the country. If ever you want an odd man to
fill up a place at dinner, I think you will find him useful." Then there
was in those days, and perhaps there is still, a mysterious race of
men--Hierophants of Society--who had great powers of helping or
hindering the social beginner. They were bachelors, not very young; who
had seen active service as dancers and diners for ten or twenty seasons;
and who kept lists of eligible youths which they were perpetually
renewing at White's or the Marlborough. To one of these the intending
hostess would turn, saying, "Dear Mr. Golightly, _do_ give me your
list;" and, if Freddy Du Cane had contrived to ingratiate himself with
Mr. Golightly, invitations to balls and dances, of every size and sort,
would soon begin to flutter down on him like snow-flakes. It mattered
nothing that he had never seen his host or hostess, nor they him. Corney
Grain expressed the situation in his own inimitable verse:

"Old Mr. Parvenu gave a great ball--
And of all his smart guests he knew no one at all.