"You think there's something materialistic about collecting books, but really collectors are the last romantics. We're the only ones who still love books as objects." "That's the question," said Jess. "How do you love them if you're always selling them?" "I don't sell everything," he said. "You haven't seen my own collection." "What do you have?" "First editions. Yeats, Dickinson- all three volumes; Eliot, Pound, Millay..." He had noticed the books she read in the store. "Plath. I also have Elizabeth Bishop." "I wish I could see them," Jess said. "You would have come to my house." "Are you inviting me?" She must have known this was a loaded question, but she asked without flirtatiousness or self-consciousness, as if to say, I only want to know as a point of information. Yes, he thought, I'm inviting you, but he did not say yes. He was her employer. She could act with a certain plucky independence, but he would always be the big bad wolf."