Henry continued to regard his wife's face with perfect love and a perfect cognizance of facts. “You couldn't wear it now,” he said.
“I don't know,” retorted Sylvia. “I dare say I don't look now as if I could. I have been working hard all day, and my hair is all out of crimp. I ain't so sure but if I did up my hair nice, and wasn't all tuckered out, that I couldn't wear a pink silk dress that's there if I tone it down with black.”
“I don't believe you would feel that you could go to meeting dressed in pink silk at your time of life,” said Henry.
“Lots of women older than I be wear bright colors,” retorted Sylvia, “in places where they are dressy. You don't know anything about dress, Henry.”
“I suppose I don't,” replied Henry, indifferently.
“I think that pink silk would be perfectly suitable and real becoming if I crimped my hair and had a black lace bonnet to wear with it.”
“I dare say.”
Henry took his place at the supper-table. It was set in the kitchen. Sylvia was saving herself all the steps possible until Horace Allen returned.
Henry did not seem to have much appetite that night. His face was overcast. Along with his scarcely confessed exultation over his good-fortune he was conscious of an odd indignation. For years he had cherished a sense of injury at his treatment at the hands of Providence; now he felt like a child who, pushing hard against opposition to his desires, has that opposition suddenly removed, and tumbles over backward. Henry had an odd sensation of having ignominiously tumbled over backward, and he missed, with ridiculous rancor, his sense of injury which he had cherished for so many years. After kicking against the pricks for so long, he had come to feel a certain self-righteous pleasure in it which he was now forced to forego.
Sylvia regarded her husband uneasily. Her state of mind had formerly been the female complement of his, but the sense of possession swerved her more easily. “What on earth ails you, Henry Whitman?” she said. “You look awful down-in-the-mouth. Only to think of our having enough to be comfortable for life. I should think you'd be real thankful and pleased.”