Two of them sat there now, a man and a woman, but their backs were turned to the spectacle, and their faces to the large and richly furnished room.

From time to time they stole a glance at each other, and their eyes told that they needed no other sight to make them happy.
Nor was it to be wondered at, for they were a well-favoured pair.
She was very young, twenty at the most, with a face which was pale, indeed, and yet of a brilliant pallor, which was so clear and fresh, and carried with it such a suggestion of purity and innocence, that one would not wish its maiden grace to be marred by an intrusion of colour.
Her features were delicate and sweet, and her blue-black hair and long dark eyelashes formed a piquant contrast to her dreamy gray eyes and her ivory skin.

In her whole expression there was something quiet and subdued, which was accentuated by her simple dress of black taffeta, and by the little jet brooch and bracelet which were her sole ornaments.
Such was Adele Catinat, the only daughter of the famous Huguenot cloth-merchant.
But if her dress was sombre, it was atoned for by the magnificence of her companion.

He was a man who might have been ten years her senior, with a keen soldier face, small well-marked features, a carefully trimmed black moustache, and a dark hazel eye which might harden to command a man, or soften to supplicate a woman, and be successful at either.

His coat was of sky-blue, slashed across with silver braidings, and with broad silver shoulder-straps on either side.