She still felt a little confused, and lay quiet in the chair.
There was a long silence, broken only by the uneven tapping of the
hardwood mallet. By and by she said, "I never felt a thing," and then
she smiled at him very prettily beneath the rubber dam. McTeague turned
to her suddenly, his mallet in one hand, his pliers holding a pellet
of sponge-gold in the other. All at once he said, with the unreasoned
simplicity and directness of a child: "Listen here, Miss Trina, I
like you better than any one else; what's the matter with us getting
married?"
Trina sat up in the chair quickly, and then drew back from him,
frightened and bewildered.
"Will you? Will you?" said McTeague. "Say, Miss Trina, will you?"
"What is it? What do you mean?" she cried, confusedly, her words muffled
beneath the rubber.
"Will you?" repeated McTeague.
"No, no," she exclaimed, refusing without knowing why, suddenly seized
with a fear of him, the intuitive feminine fear of the male. McTeague
could only repeat the same thing over and over again. Trina, more
and more frightened at his huge hands--the hands of the old-time
car-boy--his immense square-cut head and his enormous brute strength,
cried out: "No, no," behind the rubber dam, shaking her head violently,
holding out her hands, and shrinking down before him in the operating
chair.
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