That Lady Wereminster should take up any new-comer so warmly was in itself a proof of Farquharson's success. Hare rallied her on the subject.
"You've a positive flair for him. How long will it last?"
Lady Wereminster shrugged her shoulders.
"One must be in the fashion; his name is everywhere, like Odol advertisements."
Things had, indeed, opened out amazingly for the new-comer. Public curiosity was awakened, and public curiosity is another way of spelling success. Then, too, the political horizon was uniformly dull. Farquharson's doings were a positive godsend to the Press. The Stock Exchange was soon alive to his importance; Taorman bonds went up in leaps and bounds two days after his arrival.
Beadon, coming to visit him one morning and finding him at work with his secretary upon a mail from which he had separated a pile of invitation cards, glanced from them to him dubiously. Even distinguished people were anxious to be the first to exploit this man of the future; social charity, which popularizes your entertainments with no commensurate demands upon your purse-strings, is just as much sought after in Park Lane as in South Kensington.
"Feeling rather helpless, eh?"
Farquharson pointed despairingly at the invitations.
"Shall I accept or refuse the lot wholesale?" Beadon frowned.
"A difficult question. A secretary can't help you here; very few people could. It doesn't do to go everywhere; it lessens your value. And you can't afford to waste a moment's time upon unnecessary people. No, the Press is no guide. In the Morning Post you'll find long accounts of functions you mustn't dream of being seen at." He took up four or five invitations haphazard, glancing at the names. "Merrimans, Churchleighs, Halliways—what impertinence! You must refuse all those. I'll tell you who could help you—Mrs. Brand. She's a great friend of Creagh's; you met her at his house, I think. Put yourself in her hands—you can't do better. She's a good woman, always ready to help. Give her the whole bundle and take her advice implicitly."