Then Trina gave up, all in an instant,
turning her head to his. They kissed each other, grossly, full in the
mouth.
A roar and a jarring of the earth suddenly grew near and passed them
in a reek of steam and hot air. It was the Overland, with its flaming
headlight, on its way across the continent.
The passage of the train startled them both. Trina struggled to free
herself from McTeague. "Oh, please! please!" she pleaded, on the point
of tears. McTeague released her, but in that moment a slight, a barely
perceptible, revulsion of feeling had taken place in him. The instant
that Trina gave up, the instant she allowed him to kiss her, he thought
less of her. She was not so desirable, after all. But this reaction
was so faint, so subtle, so intangible, that in another moment he
had doubted its occurrence. Yet afterward it returned. Was there not
something gone from Trina now? Was he not disappointed in her for doing
that very thing for which he had longed? Was Trina the submissive, the
compliant, the attainable 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.
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