She was often taken with fits of cold restraint.

Andrea held his tongue, bewildered.
'Make your bids, gentlemen,' cried the auctioneer.
The bids rose higher.

Antonio del Pollajuolo's silver helmet was being hotly contested.

Even the Cavaliere Davila entered the lists.

The very air seemed gradually to become hotter; the feverish desire to possess so beautiful an object seemed to spread like a contagion.
In that year the craze for _bibelots_ and _bric-a-brac_ reached the point of madness.