"I need somebody in addition to you, Gallatin, to help out down at the shop," said Dick, "and Helen is going to try."
"If Cousin Courtney is willing," said Helen. "She may need me here, as I told you."
Courtney had been standing with her fingers on the edge of the chimney-piece, gazing between her arms into the fire. She slowly turned and regarded Richard. Basil and Helen working together!
"Oh, no, she doesn't need you here," asserted Vaughan. And catching Courtney's eye, he glanced from Basil to Helen and winked.
Courtney seemed not to see. "Helen doesn't want to go down there," said she. "Richard imagines, if people listen politely to his talk about chemistry, that they're as interested as he."
"Really I'd like it," said Helen, a good deal of nervousness in her enthusiasm.
"She could try it anyhow," urged Vaughan. "We need some one—don't we, Basil?"
"Yes," said Basil. "You remember, I suggested you ought to ask Mrs. Courtney to take a hand."
"Courtney!" Vaughan laughed gayly. "She has no fancy for anything serious. Now, Helen is masculine minded."
"Not a bit," declared Helen, much agitated by such an accusation, in presence of an eligible young man. "I'm so much a woman that I'm what's called a woman's woman."