I return ere many days.' He stamped out of the hall; they heard him next rating the grooms at the gate.
Saint-Pol was a great house, a noble house, no doubt of it.

Its counts drew no limits in the way of pedigree, but built themselves a fair temple in that kind, with the Twelfth Apostle himself for head of the corner.

So far as estate went, seeing their country was fruitful, compact, snugly bounded between France and Normandy (owing fealty to the first), they might have been sovereign counts, like the house of Blois, like that of Aquitaine, like that even of Anjou, which, from nothing, had risen to be so high.

More: by marriage, by robbery on that great plan where it ceases to be robbery and is called warfare, by treaty and nice use of the balances, there was no reason why kingship should not have been theirs, or in their blood.

Kingship, even now, was not far off.