"She's handsome," it said.

Gurgeh sat back in the couch. "She makes me feel old."

"Oh, don't you start feeling sorry for yourself," Chamlis said, floating back from the window.

Gurgeh looked at the hearth stones. "Everything seems… grey at the moment, Chamlis. Sometimes I start to think I'm repeating myself, that even new games are just old ones in disguise, and that nothing's worth playing for anyway."

"Gurgeh," Chamlis said matter-of-factly, and did something it rarely did, actually settling physically into the couch, letting it take its weight. "Settle up; are we talking about games, or life?"

Gurgeh put his dark-curled head back and laughed.

"Games," Chamlis went on, "have been your life. If they're starting to pall, I'd understand you might not be so happy with anything else."

"Maybe I'm just disillusioned with games," Gurgeh said, turning a carved game-piece over in his hands. "I used to think that context didn't matter; a good game was a good game and there was a purity about manipulating rules that translated perfectly from society to society… but now I wonder. Take this; Deploy." He nodded at the board in front of him. "This is foreign. Some backwater planet discovered just a few decades ago. They play this there and they bet on it; they make it important. But what do we have to bet with? What would be the point of my wagering Ikroh, say?"

"Yay wouldn't take the bet, certainly," Chamlis said, amused. "She thinks it rains too much."

"But you see? If somebody wanted a house like this they'd already have had one built; if they wanted anything in the house" — Gurgeh gestured round the room- "they'd have ordered it; they'd have it. With no money, no possessions, a large part of the enjoyment the people who invented this game experienced when they played it just disappears."