Most of the talk turned on the famous new liveries, and Egmont described how he won the toss which was to decide the design, and how eagerly his livery had been accepted.
At this point Anne lifted her smouldering eyes and turned to her husband.
"Will our men appear in this beggarly camlet?" she asked, and her tone was a direct insult to Egmont and his fellows.
"Why not?" smiled William. "It will be an easy means of economy, ma mie."
"Economy!" repeated Anne scornfully. "That is a strange point on which to begin economy; and is it not rather late, too, now when your affairs stand almost past helping?"
"Her Highness speaks like a Cardinalist," smiled the Countess of Egmont, in the hope of distracting Anne from her temper. "Yet she must have little love for the persecutor of the Protestants."
Anne leant forward, put her arm on the table, and stared rudely at the Countess across the gold and silver, china and porcelain of her own luxurious table.
"I did not come to Brussels, Madame," she said, "to bicker with the Cardinal and flout His Majesty, nay, nor to live cooped away like a sick pigeon within four walls——"
"Anne!" said the Prince, turning in his chair. "Hush, Anne."
The Princess faced him with sudden frenzy.