"You expressed doubt of this generation having heard of the gentleman,
but he strikes me for all the world as a celebrity. Now who is he?
I can't put my finger on him--I can't give him a label. Wasn't he a writer?
Surely he's a poet." I was determined that it should be she, not I,
who should first pronounce Jeffrey Aspern's name.
My resolution was taken in ignorance of Miss Bordereau's
extremely resolute character, and her lips never formed
in my hearing the syllables that meant so much for her.
She neglected to answer my question but raised her hand to take
back the picture, with a gesture which though ineffectual
was in a high degree peremptory. "It's only a person
who should know for himself that would give me my price,"
she said with a certain dryness.
"Oh, then, you have a price?" I did not restore the precious thing;
not from any vindictive purpose but because I instinctively clung to it.
We looked at each other hard while I retained it.
"I know the least I would take. What it occurred to me to ask you
about is the most I shall be able to get."
She made a movement, drawing herself together as if,
in a spasm of dread at having lost her treasure, she were going
to attempt the immense effort of rising to snatch it from me.
I instantly placed it in her hand again, saying as I did so,
"I should like to have it myself, but with your ideas I could
never afford it."
She turned the small oval plate over in her lap, with its face down,
and I thought I saw her catch her breath a little, as if she had
had a strain or an escape.
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