It had been so easy to talk to Ruth; it seemed that one could talk to her about anything, that there was no danger of saying a thing and having it bound back from a wall of opinions and prejudices that kept him from her. There was something resting, relaxing, in the way one could be one's self with Ruth, the way she seemed to like one for just what one was. He had always felt more at ease with her than with anyone else, but now he more than ever had the feeling that her mind was loosened from the things that held the minds of most of the women he knew. It was a great thing not to have those holdbacks in talking with a friend, to be freed of that fear of blundering into a thing that would be misunderstood. He did not face the fact that that was just the way it was with Amy, that there was constantly the fear of saying something that would better have been left unsaid. But he was thinking that being free to say what one was feeling was like drawing a long breath. And in thinking of it as he went about his calls that morning, in various homes, talking with a number of people, it occurred to him that many of those things he had come to think, things of which he did not often try to talk to others, he had arrived at because of Ruth. It was amazing how his feeling about her, thoughts through her, had run into all his thinking. It even occurred to him that if it had not been for her he might have fallen into accepting many things more or less as the rest of the town did. It seemed now that as well as having caused him much pain she had brought rich gain; for those questionings of life, that refusal placidly to accept, had certainly brought keener satisfactions than he could have had through a closer companionship with facile acceptors. Ruth had been a big thing in his life, not only in his heart, but to his mind. He had come out of the house of one of his patients and was standing on the steps talking with the woman who had anxiously followed him to the door. The house was directly across the street from the Lawrences'. Edith was sitting out on the porch; her little girl of eight and the boy, who was younger, were with her. They made an attractive picture.