Nearer at hand they could catch ends of
conversation and notes of laughter, the noise of moving dresses, and
the rustle of stiffly starched skirts. Here and there school children
elbowed their way through the crowd, crying shrilly, their hands full of
advertisement pamphlets, fans, picture cards, and toy whips, while the
air itself was full of the smell of fresh popcorn.
They even spent some time in the art gallery. Trina's cousin Selina,
who gave lessons in hand painting at two bits an hour, generally had an
exhibit on the walls, which they were interested to find. It usually was
a bunch of yellow poppies painted on black velvet and framed in gilt.
They stood before it some little time, hazarding their opinions, and
then moved on slowly from one picture to another. Trina had McTeague buy
a catalogue and made a duty of finding the title of every picture. This,
too, she told McTeague, as a kind of education one ought to cultivate.
Trina professed to be fond of art, having perhaps acquired a taste for
painting and sculpture from her experience with the Noah's ark animals.
"Of course," she told the dentist, "I'm no critic, I only know what
I like." She knew that she liked the "Ideal Heads," lovely girls with
flowing straw-colored hair and immense, upturned eyes.
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