time he stood watching her as
she lay there, unconscious and helpless, and very pretty. He was alone
with her, and she was absolutely without defense.

Suddenly the animal in the man stirred and woke; the evil instincts
that in him were so close to the surface leaped to life, shouting and
clamoring.

It was a crisis--a crisis that had arisen all in an instant; a crisis
for which he was totally unprepared. Blindly, and without knowing
why, McTeague fought against it, moved by an unreasoned instinct of
resistance. Within him, a certain second self, another better McTeague
rose with the brute; both were strong, with the huge crude strength
of the man himself. The two were at grapples. There in that cheap and
shabby "Dental Parlor" a dreaded struggle began. It was the old battle,
old as the world, wide as the world--the sudden panther leap of
the animal, lips drawn, fangs aflash, hideous, monstrous, not to be
resisted, and the simultaneous arousing of the other man, the better
self that cries, "Down, down," without knowing why; that grips the
monster; that fights to strangle it, to thrust it down and back.

Dizzied and bewildered with the shock, the like of which he had never
known before, McTeague turned from Trina, gazing bewilderedly about the
room. The struggle was bitter; his teeth ground themselves together with
a little rasping sound; the blood sang in his ears; his face flushed
scarlet; his hands twisted themselves together like the knotting of
cables. The fury in him was as the fury of a young bull in the heat of
high summer. But for all that he shook his huge head from time to time,
muttering:

"No, by God! No, by God!"

Dimly he seemed to realize that should he yield now he would never be
able to care for Trina again. She would never be the same to him, never
so radiant, so sweet, so adorable; her charm for him would vanish in an
instant. Across her forehead, her little pale forehead, under the shadow
of her royal hair, he would surely see the smudge of a foul ordure, the
footprint of the monster. It would be a sacrilege, an abomination. He
recoiled from it, banding all his strength to the issue.

"No, by God! No, by God!"

He turned to his work, as if seeking a refuge in it. But as he drew near
to her again, the charm of her innocence and helplessness came over
him afresh. It was a final protest against his resolution. Suddenly he
leaned over and kissed her, grossly, full on the mouth. The thing was
do