She was too good for him; too delicate, too
refined, too prettily made for him, who was so coarse, so enormous, so
stupid. She was for someone else--Marcus, no doubt--or at least for some
finer-grained man. She should have gone to some other dentist; the young
fellow on the corner, for instance, the poser, the rider of bicycles,
the courser of grey-hounds. McTeague began to loathe and to envy this
fellow. He spied upon him going in and out of his office, and noted his
salmon-pink neckties and his astonishing waistcoats.
One Sunday, a few days after Trina's last sitting, McTeague met Marcus
Schouler at his table in the car conductors' coffee-joint, next to the
harness shop.
"What you got to do this afternoon, Mac?" inquired the other, as they
ate their suet pudding.
"Nothing, nothing," replied McTeague, shaking his head. His mouth
was full of pudding. It made him warm to eat, and little beads of
perspiration stood across the bridge of his nose. He looked forward
to an afternoon passed in his operating chair as usual. On leaving
his "Parlors" he had put ten cents into his pitcher and had left it at
Frenna's to be filled.
"What do you say we take a walk, huh?" said Marcus.
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