The cat who lived on the premises, preferring to be
dirty rather than to be wet, had got into the coal scuttle, and over its
rim watched her sleepily with a long, complacent purr.
All at once he stopped purring, leaving an abrupt silence in the air
like the sudden shutting off of a stream of water, while his eyes grew
wide, two lambent disks of yellow in the heap of black fur.
"Who is there?" cried Trina, sitting back on her heels. In the stillness
that succeeded, the water dripped from her hands with the steady tick of
a clock. Then a brutal fist swung open the street door of the schoolroom
and McTeague came in. He was drunk; not with that drunkenness which is
stupid, maudlin, wavering on its feet, but with that which is alert,
unnaturally intelligent, vicious, perfectly steady, deadly wicked. Trina
only had to look once at him, and in an instant, with some strange sixth
sense, born of the occasion, knew what she had to expect.
She jumped up and ran from him into the little cloakroom. She locked and
bolted the door after her, and leaned her weight against it, panting and
trembling, every nerve shrinking and quivering with the fear of him.
McTeague put his hand on the knob of the door outside and opened it,
tearing off the lock and bolt guard, and sending her staggering across
the room.
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