She had read about him, then. Alfred was a bit relieved that his comment had made sense. He'd realized after he'd said it that if she hadn't recognized him from any of the several places his picture had turned up his answer would have seemed intentional obscure, and that really wasn't the vibe he was going for. (And it wasn't often that Alfred even had anything he was 'going for', socially inept as he always felt he was, particularly at home in England. Even though he'd known this woman for less than two minutes, though, and still hadn't managed to get her name, her profession and the way she talked about it had piqued his interest. He wanted to hear more about her work and her travels, and more than that, to just hear more about her. He wanted her to feel inclined to talk to him — he wanted her to like him. Which was sort of new for him, at least since he'd returned from abroad).

When she brought up cursed objects, though, he couldn't help but feel let down. He'd missed most of the drama with the fog in Irvingly that had swept through England taking magic away from wizards, but that had been due to a cursed object of some sort from an ancient civilization — and that was, apparently, the general type of thing that had produced the chest he'd turned over to the Ministry earlier. He was entirely too close to that particular incident, and it was what had kept him and his crew sitting around in port twiddling their thumbs since January. He'd had quite enough of cursed objects.

"It's sad that curses are the only things we really see from those societies, isn't it?" he asked with a frown. "And there seem to have been quite a few of them floating around lately."