“Let me amend that,” I said. “When she gets fat she gets frightened, diets, and gets fatter. Then she gets a little angry, golfs, rides, swims, hustles, finds the secret, gets reasonably proper again and acquires the new charm that comes with the aroused energy and the humility of a threatened loss—or gain, as you may wish to put it. Nothing is more qualifying than the threatened adversity of fat. We all know women who would be simply insufferable if they were not a shade plumper than they care to be. I fancy that leanness induces a more private humility.” [Illustration] “It is a more private defect. But this is all to be righted in the next century. Our new ideals are going to give us more of the English physique. Anyway, we are going to be more athletic, not merely in this gymnasium way, which is only a sign of good faith, but in a broader, more practical, more—shall I say final?—way. See what summer means to us now.” “Well, it seems to mean a great many things.” “It means everything that could make a gym unnecessary. It once meant very little, it seems to me; if we are to believe what our grandmothers tell us. Now it means as much to a girl as to her brother.” “It doesn’t mean quite as much as it might if there were more brothers—there.” [Illustration] “True. Our summer groups always make me think of college. We are not through seeing too much of one another when we graduate. Presently we are in clubs or gym classes, and, in the summer, man is an exceptional element.” “And that is not good for him. It is not good for him to be in such a majority in the city nor in such a minority in the country. But I don’t see what we can do about it.” “I suppose each sex will have to go on living out the problem for itself. That seems likely to keep both sexes busy.” “It is keeping your sex busy.” “You never can tell about us.” “I admit that.” “We have great larks over the profound things, and go to pieces—” “Relaxing.” [Illustration] She laughed, and got up in her easy, definite way. “You must go now,—not because you have been naughty, but because the class is coming.” “That is a class decision. But I bow to your ruling, Miss Gym.” [Illustration] [Illustration] IV WITH A HEROINE [Illustration] When I asked her what sort of heroine she was, she looked up with a laugh and said that she didn’t see how it was possible to say precisely until the end of the story. “And yet,” I said, “one generally can make a good guess before the last chapter comes.” “Then you may do that,” she rejoined. “I dare say I might find out by the process of elimination. You are not a heroine because you are travelling alone from Los Angeles to Richmond?” “No. In this age and country there isn’t a particle of heroism in that. Why, you remember that ‘a woman might travel from one end of Britain to the other with safety in Eadwine’s day.’” “It is not because you are travelling in a bicycle suit?” “No. There are no more heroics in clothes.”