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. Old Mr. Parvenu went up to bed, And the guest said 'Good-night' to the butler instead." But light come, light go. Ball-going is elysian when one is very young and cheerful and active, but it is a pleasure which, for nine men out of ten, soon palls. Dinner-society, as Cardinal Grandison knew, is a more serious affair, and admission to it is not so lightly attained. When Sydney Smith returned from a visit to Paris, he wrote, in the fulness of his heart: