"Beautiful!" Randolph thought; "beautiful! Ay, she is more than beautiful." And the presentiment he had felt before came gloomily back upon his heart. But the fair stranger was not the only damsel who attracted admiration in the opera-house that night. "Who is that, Melcomb?" asked a portly, good-humoured personage, leaning on the rail of the orchestra, and looking towards Mrs. Winter's box. "A new face, is it not?" "The girl with the bird of paradise in her hair?" answered Melcomb. "Fie! Winesour. Have you forgotten Cressy?--Though, to be sure, the gentle Cressida may have a new face to-night, or any night." "Pooh! you know who I mean," Winesour persisted; "in the tier below." "The pallid thing in black?" said Melcomb. "It's in a state of willowhood. You see through a glass of Chambertin." "May I never drink another," cried Winesour, with a quaint twinkle of his small grey eye, "if she ever saw an opera before. Think you I have no eyes? _Vorrei e non vorrei_. She followed Fodor's notes with her lips apart, and tears in her eyes. She cried, Melcomb." "Winesour turned enthusiastic for a pale-cheeked girl!" said Melcomb. "What next? But I love not rhapsody, so--adieu!" But while he chose to speak of Helen's appearance in these disparaging terms, Melcomb had really observed her with admiration, and determined to ascertain who she might be. He was one of those handsome, careless, profligate fellows, who are too well regarded by the men, and too easily pardoned by the women. One murder, it has been rather absurdly said, makes a villain; ten thousand, a hero. But it may with some truth be remarked, that the number of hearts a Melcomb breaks rather adds to his fame than diminishes his reputation. He rises upon ruin.