When McTeague came out of his “Parlors” at noon of the day upon which Trina had heard the news of Maria Macapa’s intended marriage, he found Trina burning coffee on a shovel in the sitting-room.  Try as she would, Trina could never quite eradicate from their rooms a certain faint and indefinable odor, particularly offensive to her.  The smell of the photographer’s chemicals persisted in spite of all Trina could do to combat it.  She burnt pastilles and Chinese punk, and even, as now, coffee on a shovel, all to no purpose.  Indeed, the only drawback to their delightful home was the general unpleasant smell that pervaded it—­a smell that arose partly from the photographer’s chemicals, partly from the cooking in the little kitchen, and partly from the ether and creosote of the dentist’s “Parlors.”

As McTeague came in to lunch on this occasion, he found the table already laid, a red cloth figured with white flowers was spread, and as he took his seat his wife put down the shovel on a chair and brought in the stewed codfish and the pot of chocolate.  As he tucked his napkin into his enormous collar, McTeague looked vaguely about the room, rolling his eyes.

During the three years of their married life the McTeagues had made but few additions to their furniture, Trina declaring that they could not afford it.  The sitting-room could boast of but three new ornaments.  Over the melodeon hung their marriage certificate in a black frame.  It was balanced upon one side by Trina’s wedding bouquet under a glass case, preserved by some fearful unknown process, and upon the other by the photograph of Trina and the dentist in their wedding finery.  This latter picture was quite an affair, and had been taken immediately after the wedding, while McTeague’s broadcloth was still new, and before Trina’s silks and veil had lost their stiffness.  It represented Trina, her veil thrown back, sitting very straight in a rep armchair, her elbows well in at her sides, holding her bouquet of cut flowers directly before her.  The dentist stood at her side, one hand on her shoulder, the other thrust into the breast of his “Prince Albert,” his chin in the air, his eyes to one side, his left foot forward in the attitude of a statue of a Secretary of State.

“Say, Trina,” said McTeague, his mouth full of codfish, “Heise looked in on me this morning.  He says ’What’s the matter with a basket picnic over at Schuetzen Park next Tuesday?’ You know the paper-hangers are going to be in the ‘Parlors’ all that day, so I’ll have a holiday.  That’s what made Heise think of it.  Heise says he’ll get the Ryers to go too.  It’s the anniversary of their wedding day.  We’ll ask Selina to go; she can meet us on the other side.  Come on, let’s go, huh, will you?”

Trina still had her mania for family picnics, which had been one of the Sieppes most cherished customs; but now there were other considerations.

“I don’t know as we can afford it this month, Mac,” she said, pouring the chocolate.  “I got to pay the gas bill next week, and there’s the papering of your office to be paid for some time.”