“How forgiving in you—how noble,” said Berty, warmly.
“Nothing noble about it—I know men, and haven’t any curiosity about them. It’s you women that bother the life out of me. I don’t know how to take you.”
“It’s only a little past eight,” said Berty, suddenly. “Can’t you come down to the wharf with me? You don’t need to go to town yet.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said the Mayor, reluctantly.
Berty caught up her sailor hat, and tripped beside him down to the street, talking on any subject that came uppermost.
The Mayor, however, returned to his first love. “Now, if there was something I could do to astonish her,” he said. “If her house got on fire, and I could rescue her, or if she fell out of a boat into the river, and I could pull her in.”
“She’s pretty tall,” said Berty, turning and surveying the rather short man by her side. “I doubt if you could pull her in.”
“If I got a good grip I could,” he said, confidently.
“The worst of it is, those heroic things don’t happen once in an age,” said Berty, in a matter-of-fact voice, “and, anyway, a woman would rather you would please her in a thousand little ways than in one big one.”