Public praise does not always come to him who has legitimately earned it. A man gives his life to extend the commercial resources of his native town, and hears the devotion and sacrifice of some man of means who has just presented a handsome donation to the fund openly acclaimed at local meetings. By twelve o'clock next day the steps of No. 50 Carlton House Terrace were besieged by a crowd of district messengers and telegraph boys with an array of communications for Miss Beadon. Everybody believed her to be the one behind Farquharson's success of the previous evening, and Dora was the last woman in the world to deny a rumour so obviously to her advantage. Indeed, by the time she had mastered the contents of all her numerous congratulations, she had persuaded herself that the young man owed his appearance on the Albert Hall platform to her, and to her alone.
And now she set to work seriously to weigh the pros and cons of the situation. Miss Beadon, remember, was no longer a débutante. She realized that her name had appeared sufficiently often in daily papers with the same prefix. There is a limit to public credulity—it is difficult to believe that one woman has refused every eligible suitor in the marriage market. But Miss Beadon had still to find that convenient person who would add to, instead of detracting from, her present position.
Farquharson, who, virile and determined, had a fighting spirit and a great capacity for work, seemed to solve the problem. Dora realized that to gain her point she must lay siege to Farquharson before his position was established. She had heard her father and other ex-ministers talk openly of his talents; had heard the wildest predictions of infatuated women taken seriously even by men like Hare and Creagh.
If she were ever to hold him, the chain must be forged soon. But how to deal with such a man? Dora had, of course, no doubt as to her personal charms, but Farquharson was a misogynist. He had made as many enemies as friends by his aloofness. So ordinary wiles and ruses would probably leave him cold, and she must summon stronger forces to her aid. Her father was naturally the trump-card in her hand; moral suasion or dissuasion, in politics, is often a synonym of social blackmail.
Evelyn must be confided in, naturally,—one went to Evelyn for sympathy as one went to Paquin for frocks—both supplied "the superior article." Evelyn, all the same, had done her best to commandeer Farquharson—Dora supposed he pitied her. The Brands were so very badly off. There could be no question of rivalry, of course, where Evelyn was concerned; nor was Dora likely to be jealous. Even had Evelyn not been married and a Catholic, one is not jealous of a woman who has to go through the season with three frocks, and turn last winter's gowns, Miss Beadon mused. Evelyn had a tiresome knack of pandering to men's vanity, though—or why should they all combine to rave so idiotically about her?
Only the generous appreciate generosity. And gratitude is an ephemeral bloom which flowers in too few gardens.
The capture of Farquharson—from a different aspect—was the object of Brand's thoughts too. Eminently practical, he was the first to acknowledge what a mistake he had made the night before. If he knew Evelyn at all, she would avoid Farquharson for the future; religious women were like that—they always ran off at a tangent when you tried to pull them up. Somehow or other she must be conciliated; must be made to meet the man again on some plea impossible to withstand.
Appeal to Evelyn's love of help and you won her at once. Unluckily, in the present instance Farquharson seemed rather in the way of conferring than of receiving favours. Other means must be used, as powerful, if less obvious.
It was precisely at this crisis in his thoughts that, sauntering slowly in the direction of Hyde Park Corner, Brand came face to face with Dora Beadon.
Farquharson's pressure of work, which had been rapidly increasing for the last few days, came to a climax on the morning after the Albert Hall meeting. Acquaintances with whose name he was scarcely familiar telegraphed congratulations; his friends thronged to his flat in relays. The Taornian Council cabled a long code message; the Stock Exchange and Wall Street felt the movement. His secretaries were kept so busily employed that he was forced to send his valet with a handful of notes to interview the representatives of the less important Press, who had been found upon his doorstep with the morning milk.