1 At the word "money," her mind came back to him, crystal clear.
2 For a moment, his eyes came back to her, wide and crystal gray, and there was admiration in them.
3 It was the first time she had ever known what Ashley was thinking when his eyes went past her, crystal clear, absent.
4 Of a sudden, the oft-told family tales to which she had listened since babyhood, listened half-bored, impatient and but partly comprehending, were crystal clear.
5 Her eyes went quickly to his but they were wide and crystal gray and they were looking through her and beyond her at some fate she could not see, could not understand.
6 But, no matter what sights they had seen, what menial tasks they had done and would have to do, they remained ladies and gentlemen, royalty in exile--bitter, aloof, incurious, kind to one another, diamond hard, as bright and brittle as the crystals of the broken chandelier over their heads.
7 Harsh contact with the red earth of Tara had stripped gentility from her and she knew she would never feel like a lady again until her table was weighted with silver and crystal and smoking with rich food, until her own horses and carriages stood in her stables, until black hands and not white took the cotton from Tara.
8 But when the dancing and toasting were finally ended and the dawn was coming, when all the Atlanta guests who could be crowded into Tara and the overseer's house had gone to sleep on beds, sofas and pallets on the floor and all the neighbors had gone home to rest in preparation for the wedding at Twelve Oaks the next day, then the dreamlike trance shattered like crystal before reality.