The money for this as well as for her trousseau came out of Trina's
five thousand dollars. For it had been finally decided that two hundred
dollars of this amount should be devoted to the establishment of the
new household. Now that Trina had made her great winning, Mr. Sieppe
no longer saw the necessity of dowering her further, especially when he
considered the enormous expense to which he would be put by the voyage
of his own family.
It had been a dreadful wrench for Trina to break in upon her precious
five thousand. She clung to this sum with a tenacity that
was surprising; it had become for her a thing miraculous, a
god-from-the-machine, suddenly descending upon the stage of her humble
little life; she regarded it as something almost sacred and inviolable.
Never, never should a penny of it be spent. Before she could be induced
to part with two hundred dollars of it, more than one scene had been
enacted between her and her parents.
Did Trina pay for the golden tooth out of this two hundred? Later on,
the dentist often asked her about it, but Trina invariably laughed in
his face, declaring that it was her secret. McTeague never found out.
One day during this period McTeague told Trina about his affair with
Marcus.
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