"'A woman-mayor? In Roma? I'm afraid it wouldn't do!'" quoted Bailey, teasingly.
"O, quit," answered Allingham. "That was before I knew her—knew anything."
"'A woman's place is at home with her husband,'" Bailey went on with a wicked glee.
"And that's where I would put her!" retorted Allingham, with spirit. "At least, I'd give her the chance."
"Go in, my boy," said Bailey, reaching out his hand to grasp his friend's, "I don't know how she feels—she's not easily won, I know; but try it. Go in and win."
That afternoon the opportunity presented itself. Allingham walked home with the Mayor. She usually drove home, but the clear, cool air of the closing autumn day, coming after long hours in office, had tempted her to test her pedestrian powers, and she had left City Hall alone. Allingham, however, appeared at the gates and asked permission to join her.
"If you care for a brisk walk of two miles," she answered, genially. "Or even if you give out and desert me on the road, you may begin. O, how good it is to shake off the dust of City Hall and take a bit of good, healthful exercise. Walking is the best way I know to keep the cobwebs from your mental sky, or to restore your tired nerves and overworked brain to normal condition."
"I walk five or six miles every morning," answered Allingham. "I believe it's the way God meant human beings to get over the ground."
"Yes," she added. "Mother Nature invented walking, while man invented carriages and cars and motors. How are Blatchley and Watts getting on with—but there, I chose to walk just to get away from the cares of office; and here I am bringing them along with me. Let's be just a boy and girl walking home from school together," she added, whimsically.
"Or man and woman walking through life together," he amended quickly.