just the same, just as delicate and adorable as Trina the inaccessible?  Perhaps he dimly saw that this must be so, that it belonged to the changeless order of things—­the man desiring the woman only for what she withholds; the woman worshipping the man for that which she yields up to him.  With each concession gained the man’s desire cools; with every surrender made the woman’s adoration increases.  But why should it be so?

Trina wrenched herself free and drew back from McTeague, her little chin quivering; her face, even to the lobes of her pale ears, flushed scarlet; her narrow blue eyes brimming.  Suddenly she put her head between her hands and began to sob.

“Say, say, Miss Trina, listen—­listen here, Miss Trina,” cried McTeague, coming forward a step.

“Oh, don’t!” she gasped, shrinking.  “I must go home,” she cried, springing to her feet.  “It’s late.  I must.  I must.  Don’t come with me, please.  Oh, I’m so—­so,”—­she could not find any words.  “Let me go alone,” she went on.  “You may—­you come Sunday.  Good-by.”

“Good-by,” said McTeague, his head in a whirl at this sudden, unaccountable change.  “Can’t I kiss you again?” But Trina was firm now.  When it came to his pleading—­a mere matter of words—­she was strong enough.

“No, no, you must not!” she exclaimed, with energy.  She was gone in another instant.  The dentist, stunned, bewildered, gazed stupidly after her as she ran up the extension of B Street through the rain.

But suddenly a great joy took possession of him.  He had won her.  Trina was to be for him, after all.  An enormous smile distended his thick lips; his eyes grew wide, and flashed; and he drew his breath quickly, striking his mallet-like fist upon his knee, and exclaiming under his breath: 

“I got her, by God!  I got her, by God!” At the same time he thought better of himself; his self-respect increased enormously.  The man that could win Trina Sieppe was a man of extraordinary ability.

Trina burst in upon her mother while the latter was setting a mousetrap in the kitchen.

“Oh, mamma!”

“Eh?  Trina?  Ach, what has happun?”

Trina told her in a breath.

“Soh soon?” was Mrs. Sieppe’s first comment.  “Eh, well, what you cry for, then?”

“I don’t know,” wailed Trina, plucking at the end of her handkerchief.

“You loaf der younge doktor?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what for you kiss him?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’ know, you don’ know?  Where haf your sensus gone, Trina?  You kiss der doktor.  You cry, and you don’ know.  Is ut Marcus den?”

“No, it’s not Cousin Mark.”

“Den ut must be der doktor.”

Trina made no answer.

“Eh?”

“I—­I guess so.”

“You loaf him?”

“I don’t know.”

Mrs. Sieppe set down the mousetrap with such violence that it sprung with a sharp snap.