The Red Saint by Warwick Deeping

It was possible for such a man as Gaillard to be in love with two women at one and the same moment, if indeed what Gaillard felt for a woman could be called love. Peter of Savoy was at Lewes, and the Gascon had the command at Pevensey, and had taken to oiling his hair, and having musk sewn up in a corner of his surcoat. He and Etoile saw much of one another, but the lute girl knew how to keep Gaillard at arm's length. He might play the troubadour, and make himself ridiculous by singing under her window at night. Etoile wished to try the man further before she trusted such a cousin as Gaillard with her power over Count Peter of Savoy.

One thing Etoile did not know, that Gaillard had ridden more than once to the beech wood above Goldspur, and that he had seen Denise, and come away feeling baulked and foolish. The Red Saint had shut herself obstinately in her cell, and as for singing her love songs, even Gaillard had not the gross conceit to treat Denise as he would have treated Etoile. Yet Gaillard had no sense of the comic in life, and accepted himself with such enthusiasm that anything was possible to so blatant a creature. Display was a passion with him, and any clouding of his conceit, an injury that made him scowl like a spoilt child. Life had to be full of noise and bustle, the blowing of trumpets, and the applause of women. Gaillard was so much in love with himself that he ran about like a fanatic waving a torch, and expecting all the world to listen to what he said.