The dinner was a good one, but Grace ate sparingly, though she talked with animation and brilliancy unusual even for her, Philip imagined. For himself, he felt as he thought a detected criminal, an outcast, must feel. Excusing himself abruptly, he relieved his feelings somewhat by throwing out of doors the offending coat and the garments pertaining to it; then he threw out all the woollen garments of his wardrobe. Caleb was not due at Sunday school until three o'clock, but he excused himself an hour early. As he started, he signalled Philip in a manner familiar in the store, to follow him, and when both were outside the door, he said:—
"I reckon she needs quinine, or somethin'. Touchiness 'bout smells is a sign. I'd get Doc Taggess to come down, if I was you."
Philip thanked him for the suggestion; then he hurried to the bath-room, washed his hair and mustache, and exchanged his clothes for a thinner suit which he exhumed from a trunk. It was redolent of camphor, which he detested, but it was "all the perfumes of Araby" compared with—the pork-house. Then he rejoined Grace and made haste to officiate as assistant scullion, and also to ejaculate:—
"That infernal pork-house!"
"Don't talk of it any more to-day," Grace said, with a piteous smile.
"How can I help it, when—"
"But you must help it, Phil dear. Really you must."
Philip made haste to change the subject of conversation, and to cheer his wife and escape from his own thoughts he tried to be humorous, and finally succeeded so well that he and Grace became as merry in their little kitchen as they ever had been anywhere. Indeed, Grace recovered her spirits so splendidly that of her own accord she recalled the pork-house, and said many amusing things about "Bluebeard's Chamber," and told how curious and jealous Philip's prohibition had made her, and Philip replied that it contained more trunkless heads than the fateful closet of Bluebeard, and that it was a treasure-house besides; for through it passed most of the store's business that directly produced money. Then he dashed at the piano and played a lot of music so lively that it would have shocked the church people had they heard it, and Grace lounged in an easy-chair, with her eyes half closed, looking the picture of dreamy contentment. Later she composed herself among the pillows of a lounge, and asked Philip to throw an afghan over her, and sit beside her, and talk about old times in the city, and then to remind her of all their newer blessings, because she wished to be very, fully, reverently grateful for them. Philip was not loath to comply with her request; for though the month's work had been very exacting and hard, he had been assured by Caleb, within twenty-four hours, that it was the largest and most profitable month of business that the Somerton store had ever done, and that beyond a doubt the new proprietor had "caught on," and held all the old customers, and of his own ability secured several new ones, which proved that the people of the town and county "took to" him.
All this Philip repeated to Grace, who dreamily said that it was very good, and a satisfaction to have her husband prominent among men, instead of a nobody—a splendid, incomparable, adorable one, but still really a nobody, among the hundreds of thousands of men in New York. Then both of them fell to musing as the twilight deepened. Musing, twilight, and temporary relief from the strain of the week's work combined to send Philip into a gentle doze, from which he suddenly roused himself to say:—