When she descended, the two men had breakfasted and gone, and Winchie was out on the lawn playing at snow man with the Donaldson children and their governess. Helen, still at table with coffee and newspaper, greeted her so honest of eye and of voice that she was altogether ashamed of her thoughts of evening and night before. Also, Helen did not look especially well in the mornings. Sleep swelled her face, her eyelids; her skin inclined to be cloudy; her hair hung rather stringily about her brow. And in négligée the defect of too much bust and too short waist seemed worse than it was. "I must see that she gets a proper corset," thought Courtney. "Like so many women, she doesn't realize that corset is three fourths of the battle for figure." She studied Helen with an artist's eye and an artist's enthusiasm for bringing out the best, the beautiful. "Yes," she said to herself, "Helen can be made a perfect wonder for looks. I must try it." And then she knew she had never really intended to send Helen away. She who had suffered so much from the tyranny of dependence—it would be impossible for her to exercise that tyranny over another. "I don't want to send her away. But if I did want to, I couldn't, no matter what happened. I might think I would, and try to compel myself to do it. But when it came to the pinch, I'd remember—and I couldn't. No other human being shall ever know through me the sort of humiliation I bear."
She was ashamed of her fears about Basil, too. "As if he hadn't known lots of women. As if our love were just the ordinary thing that passes for love. And Helen'll help brighten things up—this house must not and shall not be gloomy." Then too—and this idea she did not definitely express to herself—Helen would give her and Basil more freedom by pairing off with Richard when they were all together.
Still more cheering were the thoughts that came from her mail. From the bank's monthly statement she learned that Richard had for the first time fixed an allowance sufficient for the position she was expected to maintain. There is a minimum amount on which a family can live in a certain style; every dollar below that means pinch, every dollar above it luxury. Courtney had at times been hard put to keep from going into debt. Many a woman, bred as she had been, as most American women are—with small practical knowledge, with only the silly useless "education" the usual school and college give, with no notion of values or mistaken notions, with contempt for realities and reverence for inanities—has in the same circumstances become hopelessly involved. But whatever the shortcomings in Mrs. Benedict's system of bringing up her children, she had certainly inculcated a horror of debt. And as human life and character are grounded upon material things if they have any substantial foundation at all, this dread of debt had been and continued to be one of the main factors in Courtney's development. It is amazing how far a single cardinal real principle, such as a fixed aversion to debt, will go toward keeping any human being straight, toward bringing them back to sense of the just and the right, when they have been swerved by emotion or irresistible gale of circumstance. But in human affairs all the truly great powers are forces so quiet and move so close to the ground that their existence is unsuspected; or if pointed out, it is denied and scouted, and some windy fake of philosophy or politics or superstition is hailed as the god in the machine. Instead of going into debt and playing the "refined, cultured lady," Courtney had set about learning to economize without privation or meanness or tawdry pretense, acquiring the supreme art of living—the getting of its full value for every dollar. It had been a hard schooling; she began to realize how valuable, how invaluable. With this additional allowance Richard was now making, she saw what wonders of improvement she could work—she who had been getting out of the smaller income what many women in Wenona, spending four and five times as much, had not got. Certainly, the sky was brightening.
"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?"
"Crazy about them."
"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."