It was their tete-a-tete. Instinctively they felt each other's presence,
felt each other's thought coming to them through the thin partition.
It was charming; they were perfectly happy. There in the stillness that
settled over the flat in the half hour after midnight the two old people
"kept company," enjoying after their fashion their little romance that
had come so late into the lives of each.
On the way to her room in the garret Maria Macapa paused under the
single gas-jet that burned at the top of the well of the staircase; she
assured herself that she was alone, and then drew from her pocket one of
McTeague's "tapes" of non-cohesive gold. It was the most valuable steal
she had ever yet made in the dentist's "Parlors." She told herself that
it was worth at least a couple of dollars. Suddenly an idea occurred
to her, and she went hastily to a window at the end of the hall, and,
shading her face with both hands, looked down into the little alley just
back of the flat. On some nights Zerkow, the red-headed Polish Jew, sat
up late, taking account of the week's ragpicking. There was a dim light
in his window now.
Maria went to her room, threw a shawl around her head, and descended
into the little back yard of the flat by the back stairs.
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