Then a discussion was opened on the subject, Trina sitting up in the chair, holding her hat in her lap; McTeague leaning against the window frame his hands in his pockets, his eyes wandering about on the floor.  Trina did not want the other tooth removed; one hole like that was bad enough; but two—­ah, no, it was not to be thought of.

But McTeague reasoned with her, tried in vain to make her understand that there was no vascular connection between the root and the gum.  Trina was blindly persistent, with the persistency of a girl who has made up her mind.

McTeague began to like her better and better, and after a while commenced himself to feel that it would be a pity to disfigure such a pretty mouth.  He became interested; perhaps he could do something, something in the way of a crown or bridge.  “Let’s look at that again,” he said, picking up his mirror.  He began to study the situation very carefully, really desiring to remedy the blemish.

It was the first bicuspid that was missing, and though part of the root of the second (the loose one) would remain after its extraction, he was sure it would not be strong enough to sustain a crown.  All at once he grew obstinate, resolving, with all the strength of a crude and primitive man, to conquer the difficulty in spite of everything.  He turned over in his mind the technicalities of the case.  No, evidently the root was not strong enough to sustain a crown; besides that, it was placed a little irregularly in the arch.  But, fortunately, there were cavities in the two teeth on either side of the gap—­one in the first molar and one in the palatine surface of the cuspid; might he not drill a socket in the remaining root and sockets in the molar and cuspid, and, partly by bridging, partly by crowning, fill in the gap?  He made up his mind to do it.

Why he should pledge himself to this hazardous case McTeague was puzzled to know.  With most of his clients he would have contented himself with the extraction of the loose tooth and the roots of the broken one.  Why should he risk his reputation in this case?  He could not say why.

It was the most difficult operation he had ever performed.  He bungled it considerably, but in the end he succeeded passably well.  He extracted the loose tooth with his bayonet forceps and prepared the roots of the broken one as if for filling, fitting into them a flattened piece of platinum wire to serve as a dowel.  But this was only the beginning; altogether it was a fortnight’s work.  Trina came nearly every other day, and passed two, and even three, hours in the chair.

By degrees McTeague’s first awkwardness and suspicion vanished entirely.  The two became good friends.  McTeague even arrived at that point where he could work and talk to her at the same time—­a thing that had never before been possible for him.