Rienzi by Edward Bulwer-lytton — Read

As soon as Annibaldi, with the greater part of the retinue, was gone, / Adrian, divesting himself of his heavy greaves, entered alone the / pavilion of the Knight of St. John. Montreal had already doffed all his / armour, save the breastplate, and he now stepped forward to welcome his / guest with the winning and easy grace which better suited his birth / than his profession. He received Adrian's excuses for the absence of / Annibaldi and the other knights of his train with a smile which seemed / to prove how readily he divined the cause, and conducted him to the / other and more private division of the pavilion in which the repast / (rendered acceptable by the late exercise of guest and host) was / prepared; and here Adrian for the first time discovered Adeline. Long / inurement to the various and roving life of her lover, joined to a / certain pride which she derived from conscious, though forfeited, rank, / gave to the outward manner of that beautiful lady an ease and freedom / which often concealed, even from Montreal, her sensitiveness to her / unhappy situation. At times, indeed, when alone with Montreal, whom she / loved with all the devotion of romance, she was sensible only to the / charm of a presence which consoled her for all things; but in his / frequent absence, or on the admission of any stranger, the illusion / vanished -- the reality returned. Poor lady! Nature had not formed, / education had not reared, habit had not reconciled, her to the breath of / shame!

The young Colonna was much struck by her beauty, and more by her gentle / and highborn grace. Like her lord she appeared younger than she was; / time seemed to spare a bloom which an experienced eye might have told / was destined to an early grave; and there was something almost girlish / in the lightness of her form -- the braided luxuriance of her rich auburn / hair, and the colour that went and came, not only with every moment, / but almost with every word. The contrast between her and Montreal / became them both -- it was the contrast of devoted reliance and protecting / strength: each looked fairer in the presence of the other: and as Adrian / sate down to the well-laden board, he thought he had never seen a pair / more formed for the poetic legends of their native Troubadours.