"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 gla.s.s 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.

Melcomb, however, was at last positively thinking of marriage, and had become the slave professed of Mildred Pendarrel. But he sped not in his wooing as he conceived he had a right to expect. Now, it is an annoying thing for one accustomed to carry the citadel by storm, to be obliged to sit down and proceed according to the slow routine of a siege; and still more disagreeable to be unable to make any impression on the enemy's works. This was Melcomb's present position. He was favoured by the mother, he was foiled by the daughter. It was a case quite out of his experience. Mildred rode with him, danced with him, flirted with him; but she never let him utter more than one serious word. The instant he a.s.sumed an air of gravity, she prevented his speech with a jest. His courtship was a perpetual laugh. It grew quite fatiguing. Love was pleasant enough, except to make. Melcomb sometimes thought of retiring from the field. He was not stimulated by difficulty, and he was afraid of rejection. Melcomb refused! What a disgrace! Yet he felt morally certain that this would be his fate, if he now ventured to drive Mildred to Yes or No. At the same time, he was unwilling to withdraw. The match would be decidedly advantageous to him, and the lady correctly ornamental. So he bore with her frolic humour as best he might. When accosted by Winesour in the pit, he had sought refuge there from Mildred's sallies; and had been struck by the strange beauty, whose earnest interest in the music seemed, indeed, to distinguish a novice, and excited a languid curiosity in the used-up c.o.xcomb. He now returned to Mrs. Pendarrel's box, to obtain a nearer view of the fair unknown, and not without some notion of provoking Mildred's jealousy. But her mother antic.i.p.ated him.

"Can you tell me," she asked, "who those ladies are, Mr. Melcomb? You know everybody."

"My knowledge is at fault," he answered. "Shall I inquire?"

"I should like to know," Mrs. Pendarrel continued; "but they are going, and so shall I."

Mrs. Winter's party, unconscious of the interest they excited, were waiting, cl.u.s.tered together, for the announcement of their carriage, when Mrs. Pendarrel's was declared to stop the way. At the sound of the name, Randolph and Helen involuntarily turned, and found themselves face to face with the lady who had before attracted their observation. She swept haughtily past them, without seeming to be aware of their surprise, and was followed by Mildred, leaning on the arm of Melcomb.

"It was the miniature," Helen whispered to her brother, who had become suddenly pale.

In a few moments Melcomb returned to the crush room, and observed the strangers with a well-bred stare. Randolph frowned, and the c.o.xcomb smiled. Mrs. Winter's carriage was called. Melcomb noted the name, and learnt the destination. For the present it was enough. The beau had become too idle and indifferent to be very mischievous. He accepted a sensation if it fell in his path, but he would not go out of his way to seek one. "Hampstead's a great distance," he muttered, and drove to the Argyll Rooms.

CHAPTER X.

"He that has light within his own clear breast, May sit in the centre, and enjoy bright day; But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts, Benighted walks under the mid-day sun: Himself is his own dungeon."

MILTON.

Extremely startled was Mrs. Pendarrel by the appearance of the orphans of Trevethlan at the opera. Domestic affairs had temporarily diverted her suspicions respecting them, and her intentions were in a manner dormant. Great, therefore, was her surprise, when following a glance of Mildred's in which she detected some slight emotion, her own eye fell upon a face, like, yes the very image of Henry Trevethlan: the very image of what he was that fatal day, when her hasty and haughty speech drove him from her presence, for once and for ever. With a sort of fascination she gazed upon the stranger, and saw that he returned the regard with a curiosity or wonder, that changed while she looked into hatred and defiance. "Can it be possible?" she asked herself.

Several times during the remainder of the performance, she turned towards Mrs. Winter's box, and never failed to catch Randolph's eye.

And finally, in leaving the house, she noticed the manner in which both he and Helen started at the announcement of her name, and again met that proud resentment which she remembered so well in the lover of her girlhood.

"Winter!" she mused when she lay down for rest, "Winter! Ay, that is the name of their lawyer. I ought to know it well. And what do they here? Why this apparent privacy? Why seek this veil for their poverty? I must discover. They must be unmasked. Who knows but they are involved? What plan are they devising to save those mouldering towers?"

A long train of reflections pa.s.sed through Esther's mind as she lay awake that night. In the morning she summoned Michael Sinson to her presence. The young man was already considerably improved in appearance, had lost his rusticity, and acquired a manner "free and easy," with a very excellent opinion of himself. The change might be partly due to certain vague aspirations which pleased his vanity, and at the same time sharpened his natural foresight and cunning. He was abject in deference towards his patroness.

"Sinson," said she, when he came before her, "you know Mr. Trevethlan well?"

"Certainly, ma'am; from his very cradle."

"They say, he is abroad."

He noted the words--they say. "Yes, ma'am."

"There is a Mr. Winter, a lawyer, living at Hampstead," Mrs. Pendarrel continued. "He has some friend remarkably like what I should expect...young Trevethlan to be. I desire to find out who this person is, and what are his pursuits. Be so good as to inquire, if you can.

Good morning, Sinson."

But the peasant lingered.

"Did you ever hear, ma'am," he said, brushing his hat, and casting down his eyes, "that the late Mr. Trevethlan's marriage was not regular?"

Mrs. Pendarrel lost no word of the slow-spoken insinuation. Every nerve of her body quivered, but she was silent.

"It was no blame to my unfortunate relation, ma'am," Sinson proceeded; "but the report was very common, I have heard, at Trevethlan, soon after the time."

"Pshaw! sir," Esther said, having now mastered her emotion; "common fame is a common liar. Good-day to you."

And Michael departed, well aware that his patroness suspected this friend of Mr. Winter to be no other than the heir of Trevethlan, and believing also that he had sent a shaft home to her heart, which might further the projects lurking dimly in his own. The more he advanced in her confidence the greater became his own a.s.surance, and he now quitted the house in May Fair, with a certain exultation gleaming in his dark sinister eyes.

He had already supposed that he might find a subordinate instrument of use to him, and had even selected his man. He mingled now and then in the promiscuous a.s.sembly of vice and folly which met at the Argyll Rooms. There he had occasionally thrown away a guinea--he was liberally supplied with money--at hazard and had played at the same table with Melcomb. There also he met a man, in the smallness of whose stakes and the desperation of his play, Sinson read ruin. He paid the gambler a.s.siduous court.

Lewis Everope had inherited a moderate patrimony, and lived as if it were inexhaustible. He had been to a university, only to squander his money, and to obtain no distinction. Confident in his abilities, he never gave them fair play. He seemed to think that intuition could supply the place of information. He rarely finished a book--did he not know what the author was about to say? Thus his knowledge was of little value, because it was never complete. Every hour a new Cynthia attracted his attention. He did almost everything by halfs, and therefore few things well. Desultory men are not often men of principle, and he was not one of the exceptions. He was fond of society, and too careless to avoid its temptations. Very soon he learned the difficulty of saying "No."

His career was much the same, when he quitted the university with a very ign.o.ble degree, and entered an inn of court and a pleader's chambers, in the idea of being admitted to the forum. He became immersed in gay company; enjoyed, like Alfieri when an ensign in the Asti militia, the greatest possible liberty of doing nothing, which was precisely the one thing he was determined to do; in spite of the remonstrances of his friends, continually postponed his call to the bar; and in point of fact never was called.

So the years sped by in idleness, and Everope's resources dwindled and dwindled. At little over forty he was without means, and without a profession. He still hung about the inns of court, pitied by the charitable, despised by the worldly wise. His naturally sanguine temper lent him a certain gaiety of heart, which made him popular with some; and as he never plagued people with his embarra.s.sments, he was still able to find companions. He had been one of Travers's early pupils, and he occasionally looked in at his chambers even yet, although it must be owned very far from a welcome guest.

But he had reached the end of his tether. One might fancy him going wistfully round and round, straining his chain to nibble at some distasteful weed, eagerly pursuing any waif or stray wafted within his circle by the wind, not yet showing his straits by the poorness of his coat, still able to raise a laugh by some eccentricity, but with the l.u.s.tre of his eyes sadly dimmed, and the confidence of his bearing wofully abated. "When things come to the worst, they must mend," he had been wont to say, forgetting that things never do come to the worst on this side the grave. And now, sanguine still, he clung to hope in the midst of despair, and trusted to chance to retrieve his ruin. It is one of the evils of a course like his, that by the time it is run, the energy which might have shaped a new one is lost, and the self-deluded victim falls, too probably never again to rise. And then is such a course most miserable, when its slave is aware of his own degradation, repents and sins on, always hara.s.sed by self-contempt, never safe in self-reliance, always thinking of what he might have been, never remembering what he yet may be.

Men in Everope's condition have but little option in selecting their acquaintance, and often find the embarra.s.sments they cannot uniformly conceal, embolden intrusion, which they would gladly avoid, but are unable to repel. So when Sinson made some advances towards him, the spendthrift intuitively hated, yet silently endured them. And now Michael determined, if possible, to make Everope his bondman.

He had lost no time in fulfilling Mrs. Pendarrel's behest, and found little difficulty in tracing _Morton_ to the pleader's chambers. He had not obtained an opportunity of seeing him, but felt certain that the student was no other than Trevethlan. He recollected that Everope had some connection with the law, and might be of service in the schemes which fluctuated indistinctly in his mind. He sought the gambler at the Argyll Rooms.

And he was not disappointed. He saw the wretched man's last guinea swept away by the ruthless rake, and met him as he rose from the table, pale and desperate. "Fortune's a jade, sir," Sinson said, "come and drink a gla.s.s of champagne." Everope, scarcely knowing what he did, accepted the invitation, and quaffed gla.s.s after gla.s.s of the fluid which promised him a temporary oblivion of his plight. He undoubtedly achieved this object, and was unable to resist when his entertainer undertook to see him home. He was, however, sensible enough to be surprised when Sinson followed him into his chambers.

"You are a cool fellow," he stammered. "This is not exactly a palace.

I'll get a light, that is if there's a match, and then you can spy the nakedness of the land. Hang me, if you don't look like a spy."

Michael answered by producing a flask. The spendthrift's eyes glistened, and with some trouble he discovered a couple of gla.s.ses.

"It is reversing the order of things," he muttered, "reversing the order of things. But no matter. Sufficient for the day--"

As they continued to converse, Everope's contempt for his companion, slid gradually into familiarity. At length the latter, after glancing round the room, exclaimed:--

"Egad! Everope, I guess you're not in arrears for rent?"

"Why so, sir?" asked the spendthrift, with a return of his distant manner.

"Why, there's nothing to levy."

Everope laughed, and dismal it was to hear.

"Clients are few," suggested Sinson, ignorantly.