“These here are first-rate shoes, Miss Baker.  Look here, Mister Grannis, get on to the shoes Miss Baker gi’ me.  You ain’t got a pair you don’t want, have you?  You two people have less junk than any one else in the flat.  How do you manage, Mister Grannis?  You old bachelors are just like old maids, just as neat as pins.  You two are just alike—­you and Mister Grannis—­ain’t you, Miss Baker?”

Nothing could have been more horribly constrained, more awkward.  The two old people suffered veritable torture.  When Maria had gone, each heaved a sigh of unspeakable relief.  Softly they pushed to their doors, leaving open a space of half a dozen inches.  Old Grannis went back to his binding.  Miss Baker brewed a cup of tea to quiet her nerves.  Each tried to regain their composure, but in vain.  Old Grannis’s fingers trembled so that he pricked them with his needle.  Miss Baker dropped her spoon twice.  Their nervousness would not wear off.  They were perturbed, upset.  In a word, the afternoon was spoiled.

Maria went on about the flat from room to room.  She had already paid Marcus Schouler a visit early that morning before he had gone out.  Marcus had sworn at her, excitedly vociferating; “No, by damn!  No, he hadn’t a thing for her; he hadn’t, for a fact.  It was a positive persecution.  Every day his privacy was invaded.  He would complain to the landlady, he would.  He’d move out of the place.”  In the end he had given Maria seven empty whiskey flasks, an iron grate, and ten cents—­the latter because he said she wore her hair like a girl he used to know.

After coming from Miss Baker’s room Maria knocked at McTeague’s door.  The dentist was lying on the bed-lounge in his stocking feet, doing nothing apparently, gazing up at the ceiling, lost in thought.

Since he had spoken to Trina Sieppe, asking her so abruptly to marry him, McTeague had passed a week of torment.  For him there was no going back.  It was Trina now, and none other.  It was all one with him that his best friend, Marcus, might be in love with the same girl.  He must have Trina in spite of everything; he would have her even in spite of herself.  He did not stop to reflect about the matter; he followed his desire blindly, recklessly, furious and raging at every obstacle.  And she had cried “No, no!” back at him; he could not forget that.  She, so small and pale and delicate, had held him at bay, who was so huge, so immensely strong.

Besides that, all the charm of their intimacy was gone.  After that unhappy sitting, Trina was no longer frank and straight-forward.  Now she was circumspect, reserved, distant.  He could no longer open his mouth; words failed him.  At one sitting in particular they had said but good-day and good-by to each other.  He felt that he was clumsy and ungainly.  He told himself that she despised him.

But the memory of her was with him constantly.  Night after night he lay broad awake thinking of Trina, wondering about her, racked with the infinite desire of her.  His head burnt and throbbed.  The palms of his hands were dry.  He dozed and woke, and walked aimlessly about the dark room, bruising himself against the three chairs drawn up “at attention” under the steel engraving, and stumbling over the stone pug dog that sat in front of the little stove.