ed unhealed. Trina only
spoke to the dentist in monosyllables, while he, exasperated at her
calmness and frigid reserve, sulked in his "Dental Parlors," muttering
terrible things beneath his mustache, or finding solace in his
concertina, playing his six lugubrious airs over and over again, or
swearing frightful oaths at his canary. When Heise paid his bill,
McTeague, in a fury, sent the amount to the owner of the little house.

There was no formal reconciliation between the dentist and his little
woman. Their relations readjusted themselves inevitably. By the end
of the week they were as amicable as ever, but it was long before they
spoke of the little house again. Nor did they ever revisit it of a
Sunday afternoon. A month or so later the Ryers told them that the owner
himself had moved in. The McTeagues never occupied that little house.

But Trina suffered a reaction after the quarrel. She began to be sorry
she had refused to help her husband, sorry she had brought matters
to such an issue. One afternoon as she was at work on the Noah's ark
animals, she surprised herself crying over the affair. She loved her
"old bear" too much to do him an injustice, and perhaps, after all, she
had been in the wrong. Then it occurred to her how pretty it would be
to come up behind him unexpectedly, and slip the money, thirty-five
dollars, into his hand, and pull his huge head down to her and kiss his
bald spot as she used to do in the days before they were married.

Then she hesitated, pausing in her work, her knife dropping into her
lap, a half-whittled figure between her fingers. If not thirty-five
dollars, then at least fifteen or sixteen, her share of it. But a
feeling of reluctance, a sudden revolt against this intended generosity,
arose in her.

"No, no," she said to herself. "I'll give him ten dollars. I'll tell him
it's all I can afford. It IS all I can afford."

She hastened to finish the figure of the animal she was then at work
upon, putting in the ears and tail with a drop of glue, and tossing it
into the basket at her side. Then she rose and went into the bedroom and
opened her trunk, taking the key from under a corner of the carpet where
she kept it hid.

At the very bottom of her trunk, under her bridal dress, she kept her
savings. It was all in change--half dollars and dollars for the most
part, with here and there a gold piece. Long since the little brass
match-box had overflowed. Trina kept the surplus in a ch