Courtney reflected. "I don't know whether I do or not," she finally said.
Helen looked at her with sad sympathy. "And I thought you were happy!" she sighed.
"I am," rejoined Courtney. "And I purpose to remain so."
"But you are worried about me? You think Bas—Mr. Gallatin is not a fit man for me to marry?" The tone betrayed her anxiety, the importance she attached to Courtney's judgment; for, while Helen's conventional mind told her that Courtney was a "light-weight," like all lively, laughing persons, her instinct made her always consult her before acting in any matter from a man to what hat to wear with what dress. "You think he's—not nice?"
Courtney felt Helen's nearly breathless expectation; she did not answer immediately. When she did it was from the farther side of the room, with her attention apparently on a window garden of hyacinths. "Be careful, my dear. Remember, your primness is your chief asset. If he thought—or hoped—you were—loose——"
"Loose!" Helen trembled, looked as if she were about to faint.
"It's ridiculous the way we women exaggerate the value of our favors," philosophized Courtney.
"I wish you wouldn't make that kind of—of jests, dear," pleaded Helen. "I know you don't mean a word of it. You feel just as I do—that a man couldn't do enough to repay any good woman for giving herself to him."
"Or a woman do enough to repay a man for giving himself to her," retorted Courtney. "The account's even, or the whole thing's too low to talk about. Still—you don't understand—you can't. And so long as men think a woman the grander the more conceited and selfish she is, you're as well off, believing as you do.... As to Gallatin——"
"I don't care anything about him!" cried Helen. "What you've been saying has given me such a shock." She paused, then went on in a low, awful tone, "Courtney, I must tell you that I was alone with him in his sitting room for over an hour!"