And he did get there very early. The only other employee who had arrived before him was the red-haired girl. She sat by her case reading "The Journal of Valdez." Once she looked up at him with calm, clear, intelligent eyes. He did not see her; he hastily unlocked his case and drew out the coveted book. Then he sat down and began to devour it. And so utterly and instantly was he lost amid those yellow, time-faded pages[263] that he did not even glance across the aisle at his ornamental neighbour. If he had looked he would have noticed that she also was buried in "The Journal of Valdez." And it might have made him a trifle uneasy to see her look from her book to him and from him to the volume he was perusing so excitedly.
It being the last day that the library was to be on view before the sale, fashion and monomania rubbed elbows in the Heikem Galleries, crowding the well known salons morning and afternoon. And all day long White and his neighbour across the aisle were busy taking out books and manuscripts for inspection, so that they had no time for luncheon, and less for Valdez.
And that night they were paid off and dismissed; and the auctioneer and his corps of assistants took charge.
The sale took place the following morning and afternoon. White drew from the bank his fifteen hundred dollars, breakfasted on bread and milk, and went to the galleries more excited than he had ever been before in his long life of twenty-three years. And that is some time.
It was a long shot at Fortune he meant to take—a really desperate chance. One throw would settle it—win or lose. And the idea scared him[264] badly, and he was trembling a little when he took his seat amid the perfumed gowns of fashion and the white whiskers of high finance, and the shabby vestments of monomania.
Once or twice he wondered whether he was crazy. Yet, every throb of his fast-beating heart seemed to summon him to do and dare; and he felt, without even attempting to explain the feeling to himself, that now at last Opportunity was loudly rapping at his door, and that if he did not let her in he would regret it as long as he lived.
As he glanced fearfully about him he caught sight of his pretty neighbour who had held sway across the aisle. So she, too, had come to watch the sale! Probably for the excitement of hearing an auctioneer talk in thousands.
He was a little surprised, nevertheless, for she did not look bookish—nor even intellectual enough to mar her prettiness. Yet, wherever she went she would look adorable. He understood that, now.
It was a day of alarms for him, of fears, shocks, and frights innumerable. With terror he heard the auctioneer talking in terms of thousands; with horror he witnessed the bids on certain books advance by thousands at a clip. Five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand were bid, seen,[265] raised, called, hiked, until his head spun and despair seized him.
What did he know about Valdez? Either volume might bring fifty thousand dollars for all he knew. Had he fifty thousand he felt, somehow, that he would have bid it to the last penny for the book. And he came to the conclusion that he was really crazy. Yet there he sat, glued to his chair, listening, shuddering, teeth alternately chattering or grimly locked, while the very air seemed to reek of millions, and the incessant gabble of the auctioneer drove him almost out of his wits.