e, ultimate
submission, had come an affection the like of which she had never
dreamed in the old B Street days. But Trina loved her husband, not
because she fancied she saw in him any of those noble and generous
qualities that inspire affection. The dentist might or might not possess
them, it was all one with Trina. She loved him because she had given
herself to him freely, unreservedly; had merged her individuality into
his; she was his, she belonged to him forever and forever. Nothing that
he could do (so she told herself), nothing that she herself could do,
could change her in this respect. McTeague might cease to love her,
might leave her, might even die; it would be all the same, SHE WAS HIS.

But it had not been so at first. During those long, rainy days of the
fall, days when Trina was left alone for hours, at that time when the
excitement and novelty of the honeymoon were dying down, when the new
household was settling into its grooves, she passed through many an hour
of misgiving, of doubt, and even of actual regret.

Never would she forget one Sunday afternoon in particular. She had been
married but three weeks. After dinner she and little Miss Baker had gone
for a bit of a walk to take advantage of an hour's sunshine and to look
at some wonderful geraniums in a florist's window on Sutter Street. They
had been caught in a shower, and on returning to the flat the little
dressmaker had insisted on fetching Trina up to her tiny room and
brewing her a cup of strong tea, "to take the chill off." The two women
had chatted over their teacups the better part of the afternoon, then
Trina had returned to her rooms. For nearly three hours McTeague had
been out of her thoughts, and as she came through their little
suite, singing softly to herself, she suddenly came upon him quite
unexpectedly. Her husband was in the "Dental Parlors," lying back in his
operating chair, fast asleep. The little stove was crammed with coke,
the room was overheated, the air thick and foul with the odors of ether,
of coke gas, of stale beer and cheap tobacco. The dentist sprawled his
gigantic limbs over the worn velvet of the operating chair; his coat and
vest and shoes were off, and his huge feet, in their thick gray socks,
dangled over the edge of the foot-rest; his pipe, fallen from his
half-open mouth, had spilled the ashes into his lap; while on the floor,
at his side stood the half-empty pitcher of steam beer. His head had
rolled limply