Ruth, outwardly, remained unaffected by the meeting, but inwardly she was feeling precisely the same sensation of smallness which had come to Mrs. Porter on her first meeting with Kirk. If this sensation had been novel to Mrs. Porter, it was even stranger to Ruth. To think humbly of herself was an experience that seldom happened to her. She was perfectly aware that her beauty was remarkable even in a city of beautiful women, and it was rarely that she permitted her knowledge of that fact to escape her. Her beauty, to her, was a natural phenomenon, impossible to overlook. The realization of it did not obtrude itself into her mind, it simply existed subconsciously. Yet for an instant it ceased to exist. She was staggered by a sense of inferiority. It lasted but a pin-point of time, this riotous upheaval of her nature. She recovered herself so swiftly that Kirk, busy with his own emotions, had no suspicion of it. A moment later he, too, was himself again. He was conscious of feeling curiously uplifted and thrilled, as if the world had suddenly become charged with ozone and electricity, and for some reason he felt capable of great feats of muscle and energy; but the aphasia had left him, and he addressed himself with a clear brain to the task of entertaining his visitors. “George is better to-day,” he reported. “He never was bad,” said Mrs. Porter succinctly. “He doesn’t think so.” “Possibly not. He is hopelessly weak-minded.” Ruth laughed. Kirk thrilled at the sound. “Poor George!” she observed. “Don’t waste your sympathy, my dear,” said Mrs. Porter. “That he is injured at all is his own fault. For years he has allowed himself to become gross and flabby, with the result that the collision did damage which it would not have done to a man in hard condition. You, Mr. Winfield,” she added, turning abruptly to Kirk, “would scarcely have felt it. But then you,” went on Mrs. Porter, “are in good condition. Cold baths!” “I beg your pardon?” “Do you take cold baths?” “I do.” “Do you do Swedish exercises?” “I go through a series of evolutions every morning, with the utmost loathing. I started them as a boy, and they have become a habit like dram-drinking. I would leave them off if I could, but I can’t.” “Do nothing of the kind. They are invaluable.” “But undignified.” “Let me feel your biceps, Mr. Winfield,” said Mrs. Porter. She nodded approvingly. “Like iron.” She poised a finger and ran a meditative glance over his form. Kirk eyed her apprehensively. The finger darted forward and struck home in the region of the third waistcoat button. “Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Ruth!” “Yes, aunt.” “Prod Mr. Winfield where my finger is pointing. He is extraordinarily muscular.” “I say, really!” protested Kirk. He was a modest young man, and this exploration of his more intimate anatomy by the finger-tips of the girl he loved was not to be contemplated.