Her eye saw clearer, and she noted the sombre magnificence of the great room, the glory of the brocade, the gleam of silver.

Was she not the richest woman in all Bruges, aye, and in all Hainault and Guelderland?
And the credit was her own.

After the fashion of age in such moods her mind flew backward, and she saw very plain a narrow street in a wind-swept town looking out on a bleak sea.
She had been cold, then, and hungry, and deathly poor.

Well, she had travelled some way from that hovel.

She watched the thick carved stems of the candlesticks and felt a spacious ease and power.
The Cluniac was speaking.