"For want of a husband I suppose I must."
"Come now, Leah. Am I not your husband?"
"Oh yes!" she answered, with a flick of her handkerchief across a pair of scornful lips: "my husband, not a husband."
"What's the difference?"
"As if I could waste time in explaining. We have more serious matters to talk about than your want of brains."
"Serious enough," assented the man, sulkily; "but you know how to deal with trouble, Leah."
"I ought to," retorted his wife, with a shrug, "considering the experience I have had since marrying you. I wish I hadn't."
"So do I," confessed Jim; then mended his speech with a dim sense of having overstepped the mark: "No, by Jupiter, I don't mean that. You an' I get on very well, considerin' each swings on a private hook. You are not a bad sort, Leah, and I'm a--a--a--well, you know what I am."
"Not a diplomatist, certainly. Isn't this praise a trifle obvious? You don't mean it, do you?"
She looked at him wistfully, but her candid husband soon stopped any sentimental illusions she may have momentarily entertained. "Oh yes, I mean it in a sort of way. An' good temper on both sides will help us to push through the business quicker."