"If you haven’t taken a dislike to me," Helen was saying, "and are going to let me stay a while, I’ll make myself useful. In fact, I’ll not stay if I don’t. I must pay my way, and I can’t pay in money."
"Whatever you like," said Courtney, "if you’ll only stay. We want you. We need you."
Helen never forgot the warmth that cordial genuine tone sent through her. She didn’t try to put her thanks into words, for there are no words for such real and deep feeling. She simply looked at Courtney—a look that more than rewarded her. After a moment she went on in an unsteady voice, "I could help—with Winchie. I took a course in kindergarten work at Tecumseh—and in housekeeping, too. They really teach things—real things—there. Then, I sew beautifully—the finest kind of sewing."
"So I see," said Courtney, looking at the sacque Helen was wearing. She did not like the sacque, because she did not like flummery and elaboration—and Helen had the poor girl’s weakness for both. But she did admire the quality of the work that had been put into it.
"You must let me do some sewing for you. Do you like fine underclothes?"
"I knew you were," said Helen who, judging by Courtney’s dress and light way of talking, had already clearly and finally made up her mind that the verdict of "serious people" as to her cousin was just—a sweet, light, pretty creature, fond of dress and all the frivolities. "Just you wait! Mrs. Hargrave up at our town brought back some things from Paris—perfectly wonderful! All the women were excited about them. Well, I know how to make them—and where the goods can be got. Not expensive, either."
"I’ll get the material," said Courtney, "and you can make some for both of us."
"Then I took a course in fitting. Don’t judge by the things I wear. I somehow can’t fit myself."
"I suppose so. I could never afford to have them made—or to buy the best ready-made kind. But I can do well for others. I can teach your dressmaker how to behave herself. That’ll save you a lot of time and worry, won’t it?"
"And work. Now, I have to remake most of my things."
Courtney began to respect Helen. The evening before, the girl, bent upon making a favorable impression, had been a wholly different person. She had seemed to Courtney stuffed to bursting with the familiar, everywhere admired and nowhere admirable "idealism" that chokes thought with cant and cumbers action with pretense. She had displayed a disquieting fondness for the "cultured" drivel about art and literature, about morals and manners, that destroys sincerity and simplicity’s strength, and creates the doleful dreary lack of individuality characteristic of the so-called educated classes throughout the world. Courtney had always had the courage to confess that these honored frauds seemed to her ridiculous and wearisome. She assumed that Richard’s and Basil’s admiring attention, as Helen "showed off" after the manner of young girls, was politeness—or tribute to Helen’s good looks. Now that she had discovered real virtues in Helen, she was not alarmed; for, she had learned that men are not interested in such virtues in young women but only in surface charms that stimulate their sex illusions. "It’d take a man who had been married at least once to appreciate Helen," thought she.