"Why, I didn't know you had been married but once."
He winced. "Look here, you mustn't talk that way."
"But you began it. You called me a young rabbit."
"That's right, and now we will call it off. What a memory you've got. I gad, once joke with a woman and her impudence—which she mistakes for wit—leaps over all difference in ages. But they are laying for you at home and you are going to catch it. I laughed at them; told them it was nonsense to suppose that the smartest girl in the state was going to marry—"
"You've said enough. I don't need your championship."
"But you've got it and can't help yourself. Why, so far as brains are concerned, the average legislator can't hold a candle to you."
"That's no compliment."
"Slow. I was in the legislature."
"Yes, one term, I hear."
"Why did you hear one term?"