On a cabinet near to where she stood was a casket of ormolu, which she unlocked, and took out a miniature, opened, and looked at it for a long time. I knew very well whose it was, and watched her countenance; for, as I have said, she interested me strangely. I suppose she knew I was looking at her; but she showed always a queenlike indifference about what people might think or observe. There was no sentimental softening; but her gaze was such as I once saw the same proud and handsome face turn upon the dead--pale, exquisite, perhaps a little stern. What she read there--what procession of thoughts and images passed by--threw neither light nor shadow on her face. Its apathy interested me inscrutably. At last she placed the picture in my hand, and asked-- 'Is this really very like her?' 'It is, and it is _not_,' I said, after a little pause. 'The features are true: it is what I call an accurate portrait, but that is all. I dare say, exact as it is, it would give to one who had not seen her a false, as it must an inadequate, idea, of the original. There was something _naive_ and _spirituel_, and very tender in her face, which he has not caught--perhaps it could hardly be fixed in colours.' 'Yes, I always heard her expression and intelligence were very beautiful. It was the beauty of mobility--true beauty.' 'There is a beauty of another stamp, equally exquisite, Miss Brandon, and perhaps more overpowering.' I said this in nearly a whisper, and in a very marked way, almost tender, and the next moment was amazed at my own audacity. She looked on me for a second or two, with her dark drowsy glance, and then it returned to the picture, which was again in her hand. There was a total want of interest in the careless sort of surprise she vouchsafed my little sally; neither was there the slightest resentment. If a wafer had been stuck upon my forehead, and she had observed it, there might have been just that look and no more. I was ridiculously annoyed with myself. I was betrayed, I don't know how, into this little venture, and it was a flat failure. The position of a shy man, who has just made an unintelligible joke at a dinner-table, was not more pregnant with self-reproach and embarrassment. Upon my honour, I don't think there was anything of the _roue_ in me. I own I did feel towards this lady, who either was, or seemed to me, so singular, a mysterious interest just beginning--of that peculiar kind which becomes at last terribly absorbing. I was more elated by her trifling notice of me than I can quite account for. It was a distinction. She was so indescribably handsome--so passively disdainful. I think if she had listened to me with even the faintest intimation of caring whether I spoke in this tone or not, with even a flash of momentary resentment, I might have rushed into a most reprehensible and ridiculous rigmarole.