“Nineteen ten!” They were both pale now, and trembling with excitement. An electric thrill ran through the room, a strange spirit hovered almost visibly about the commonplace group in the farmhouse parlour, and the auctioneer recognised it easily enough and without surprise, for he had grown used to knowing that men and women touch the borders of the Inexplicable at little country sales.
“Twenty!”
Andy had the ‘twenty-one’ ready on his lips, when, instead of the expected retort, there was a moment’s silence that could be felt.
“Going at twenty!”
“Now, won’t any one give another ten shillings for this exceptionally handsome sideboard?”
“Going—going—gone!”
The hammer fell, and with that sound the two young people stared at each other with a sort of odd surprise, as if they had just awakened from a queer dream.
“That’s Miss Elizabeth Atterton,” whispered Mrs. Thorpe to Andy as he began to push his way out, marvelling at his own folly.
Twenty pounds was a ridiculous sum for him to have paid for the thing in any case, and just now when he was so short of money it was sheer lunacy.
“Miss Elizabeth Atterton,” he said vaguely—“oh, the young lady who bid against me? I see.”