Selina’s cheeks matched her gown. Her eyes were wide and dark with the effort she was making to force back the hot haze threatening them. Why had she mounted this wretched soap-box! Why had she come to this hideous party! Why had she come to High Prairie! Why! . . . “Miss Selina Peake, that’s who. Miss Se-li-na Peake!” A hundred balloon faces pulled by a single cord turned toward her as she stood there on the box for all to see. They swam toward her. She put up a hand to push them back. “What’m I bid! What’m I bid! What’m I bid for this here lovely little toothful, gents! Start her up!” “Five cents!” piped up old Johannes Ambuul, with a snicker. The tittering crowd broke into a guffaw. Selina was conscious of a little sick feeling at the pit of her stomach. Through the haze she saw the widow’s face, no longer sulky, but smiling now. She saw Roelf’s dear dark head. His face was set, like a man’s. He was coming toward her, or trying to, but the crowd wedged him in, small as he was among those great bodies. She lost sight of him. How hot it was! how hot . . . An arm at her waist. Some one had mounted the little box and stood teetering there beside her, pressed against her slightly, reassuringly. Pervus DeJong. Her head was on a level with his great shoulder now. They stood together in the doorway, on the soap-box, for all High Prairie to see. “Five cents I’m bid for this lovely little mouthful put up by the school teacher’s own fair hands. Five cents! Five——” “One dollar!” Pervus DeJong. The balloon faces were suddenly punctured with holes. High Prairie’s jaw dropped with astonishment. Its mouth stood open. There was nothing plain about Selina now. Her dark head was held high, and his fair one beside it made a vivid foil. The purchase of the wine-coloured cashmere was at last justified. “And ten!” cackled old Johannes Ambuul, his rheumy eyes on Selina. Art and human spitefulness struggled visibly for mastery in Adam Ooms’s face—and art won. The auctioneer triumphed over the man. The term “crowd psychology” was unknown to him, but he was artist enough to sense that some curious magic process, working through this roomful of people, had transformed the little white box, from a thing despised and ridiculed, into an object of beauty, of value, of infinite desirability. He now eyed it in a catalepsy of admiration. “One-ten I’m bid for this box all tied with a ribbon to match the gown of the girl who brought it. Gents, you get the ribbon, the lunch, _and_ the girl. And only one-ten bid for all that. Gents! Gents! Remember, it ain’t only a lunch—it’s a picture. It pleases the eye. Do I hear one——”