"Playing billiards alone," she remarked languidly. "I should think it would bore you to death."
"My dear Eva, I'm bored to extinction, but one must have something to do."
She came slowly into the room and, going to the window, stood there looking out.
"I suppose you'd really be happier if you weren't so rich," she remarked.
"Do you think it's altogether a matter of money? That the possession of it brings misery?"
"Sometimes I think it does. I don't seem to think of any one I know who's very rich and happy too."
Astry put his cue down on the table and sat down; he seemed willing to discuss the point. "Suppose you were poor to-morrow, Eva; would you be any less wretched?"
She gave him a startled look over her shoulder. "Who said I was wretched?"
He smiled grimly. "He who runs may read."
She drew a quick breath of alarm, pressing her cheek against the window-pane and looking out with unseeing eyes. Before her was the wide terrace, the level stretch of lawn with here and there a mound of unmelted snow, and beyond the bare, brown trees and the winter sky.