"Some people like to be quiet and lonely—I am one of them."
"Ah!" he said, with a certain feeling of satisfaction. "You don't mind the loneliness—you wouldn't object to live here—all your life, eh, Elisabeth?"
Elisabeth glanced at him curiously. From his gaze she turned to the window and looked out at the great black beech-trees rising from the white carpet of snow to the grey, monotonous sky above. There was a strange look in her eyes as she looked at him again.
"Once," she said, with a faint emphasis on the word, "once I should have objected to such a life. The loneliness of it would have killed me. But now—"
"Well, Elisabeth?"
"Now I should not mind it—I could live here always."
Something in her expression prompted him to ask her why this difference in her feelings had come.
"Why should you think differently?" he said.
