The bidding below remained lukewarm throughout. The earlier auction items were all quality pieces, but none of the prices really stood out.

Yet for the kind of crowd gathered in Chetvine tonight, money was never the issue. Most of the guests here were powerhouses in their own right, so the auction atmosphere felt oddly dull and lifeless.

This put pressure on Elsie on the center stage. Her job was to maximize profits for the auction house as much as possible. To put it bluntly, taking an ite