“I tell you, Mark, I can’t help it.  I don’t know how it happened.  It came on so slow that I was, that—­that—­that it was done before I knew it, before I could help myself.  I know we’re pals, us two, and I knew how—­how you and Miss Sieppe were.  I know now, I knew then; but that wouldn’t have made any difference.  Before I knew it—­it—­it—­there I was.  I can’t help it.  I wouldn’t ‘a’ had ut happen for anything, if I could ‘a’ stopped it, but I don’ know, it’s something that’s just stronger than you are, that’s all.  She came there—­Miss Sieppe came to the parlors there three or four times a week, and she was the first girl I had ever known,—­and you don’ know!  Why, I was so close to her I touched her face every minute, and her mouth, and smelt her hair and her breath—­oh, you don’t know anything about it.  I can’t give you any idea.  I don’ know exactly myself; I only know how I’m fixed.  I—­I—­it’s been done; it’s too late, there’s no going back.  Why, I can’t think of anything else night and day.  It’s everything.  It’s—­it’s—­oh, it’s everything!  I—­I—­why, Mark, it’s everything—­I can’t explain.”  He made a helpless movement with both hands.

Never had McTeague been so excited; never had he made so long a speech.  His arms moved in fierce, uncertain gestures, his face flushed, his enormous jaws shut together with a sharp click at every pause.  It was like some colossal brute trapped in a delicate, invisible mesh, raging, exasperated, powerless to extricate himself.

Marcus Schouler said nothing.  There was a long silence.  Marcus got up and walked to the window and stood looking out, but seeing nothing.  “Well, who would have thought of this?” he muttered under his breath.  Here was a fix.  Marcus cared for Trina.  There was no doubt in his mind about that.  He looked forward eagerly to the Sunday afternoon excursions.  He liked to be with Trina.  He, too, felt the charm of the little girl—­the charm of the small, pale forehead; the little chin thrust out as if in confidence and innocence; the heavy, odorous crown of black hair.  He liked her immensely.  Some day he would speak; he would ask her to marry him.  Marcus put off this matter of marriage to some future period; it would be some time—­a year, perhaps, or two.  The thing did not take definite shape in his mind.  Marcus “kept company” with his cousin Trina, but he knew plenty of other girls.  For the matter of that, he liked all girls pretty well.  Just now the singleness and strength of McTeague’s passion startled him.  McTeague would marry Trina that very afternoon if she would have him; but would he—­Marcus?  No, he would not; if it came to that, no, he would not.  Yet he knew he liked Trina.  He could say—­yes, he could say—­he loved her.  She was his “girl.”  The Sieppes acknowledged him as Trina’s “young man.”  Marcus came back to the table and sat down sideways upon it.

“Well, what are we going to do about it, Mac?” he said.

“I don’ know,” answered McTeague, in great distress.  “I don’ want anything to—­to come between us, Mark.”