The younger women of Polk Street--the shop girls, the young women of the soda fountains, the waitresses in the cheap restaurants--preferred another dentist, a young fellow just graduated from the college, a poser, a rider of bicycles, a man about town, who wore astonishing waistcoats and bet money on greyhound coursing.

Trina was McTeague's first experience.

With her the feminine element suddenly entered his little world.

It was not only her that he saw and felt, it was the woman, the whole sex, an entire new humanity, strange and alluring, that he seemed to have discovered.

How had he ignored it so long?
It was dazzling, delicious, charming beyond all words.