"What's to become of us
now? We're paupers, beggars--and all so sudden." And once, in a quick,
inexplicable fury, totally unlike anything that McTeague had noticed in
her before, she had started up, with fists and teeth shut tight, and
had cried, "Oh, if you'd only KILLED Marcus Schouler that time he fought
you!"
McTeague had continued his work, acting from sheer force of habit; his
sluggish, deliberate nature, methodical, obstinate, refusing to adapt
itself to the new conditions.
"Maybe Marcus was only trying to scare us," Trina had said. "How are
they going to know whether you're practising or not?"
"I got a mould to make to-morrow," McTeague said, "and Vanovitch, that
plumber round on Sutter Street, he's coming again at three."
"Well, you go right ahead," Trina told him, decisively; "you go right
ahead and make the mould, and pull every tooth in Vanovitch's head if
you want to. Who's going to know? Maybe they just sent that notice as a
matter of form. Maybe Marcus got that paper and filled it in himself."
The two would lie awake all night long, staring up into the dark,
talking, talking, talking.
"Haven't you got any right to practise if you've not been to a dental
college, Mac? Didn't you ever go?" Trina would ask again and again.
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