McTeague went softly about the room from one object to another, beholding Trina in everything he touched or looked at.  He came at last to the closet door.  It was ajar.  He opened it wide, and paused upon the threshold.

Trina’s clothes were hanging there—­skirts and waists, jackets, and stiff white petticoats.  What a vision!  For an instant McTeague caught his breath, spellbound.  If he had suddenly discovered Trina herself there, smiling at him, holding out her hands, he could hardly have been more overcome.  Instantly he recognized the black dress she had worn on that famous first day.  There it was, the little jacket she had carried over her arm the day he had terrified her with his blundering declaration, and still others, and others—­a whole group of Trinas faced him there.  He went farther into the closet, touching the clothes gingerly, stroking them softly with his huge leathern palms.  As he stirred them a delicate perfume disengaged itself from the folds.  Ah, that exquisite feminine odor!  It was not only her hair now, it was Trina herself—­her mouth, her hands, her neck; the indescribably sweet, fleshly aroma that was a part of her, pure and clean, and redolent of youth and freshness.  All at once, seized with an unreasoned impulse, McTeague opened his huge arms and gathered the little garments close to him, plunging his face deep amongst them, savoring their delicious odor with long breaths of luxury and supreme content.

* * * * *

The picnic at Schuetzen Park decided matters.  McTeague began to call on Trina regularly Sunday and Wednesday afternoons.  He took Marcus Schouler’s place.  Sometimes Marcus accompanied him, but it was generally to meet Selina by appointment at the Sieppes’s house.

But Marcus made the most of his renunciation of his cousin.  He remembered his pose from time to time.  He made McTeague unhappy and bewildered by wringing his hand, by venting sighs that seemed to tear his heart out, or by giving evidences of an infinite melancholy.  “What is my life!” he would exclaim.  “What is left for me?  Nothing, by damn!” And when McTeague would attempt remonstrance, he would cry:  “Never mind, old man.  Never mind me.  Go, be happy.  I forgive you.”

Forgive what?  McTeague was all at sea, was harassed with the thought of some shadowy, irreparable injury he had done his friend.

“Oh, don’t think of me!” Marcus would exclaim at other times, even when Trina was by.  “Don’t think of me; I don’t count any more.  I ain’t in it.”  Marcus seemed to take great pleasure in contemplating the wreck of his life.  There is no doubt he enjoyed himself hugely during these days.

The Sieppes were at first puzzled as well over this change of front.

“Trina has den a new younge man,” cried Mr. Sieppe.  “First Schouler, now der doktor, eh?  What die tevil, I say!”

Weeks passed, February went, March came in very rainy, putting a stop to all their picnics and Sunday excursions.