"I hadn't told you but—the fact is—while I was on that visit to Saint X, I—I became engaged to Will Arbuthnot."
Courtney looked laughingly at her over the suspended brush. "Oh, Helen—Helen!"
"But let me explain, dear," begged Helen, cheeks scarlet and eyes down. "When I went up there—and until just a few minutes ago—I thought—" Her faltering voice died away altogether.
"Thought there was no hope of getting Basil," said Courtney, with no censure, with only sympathy. She resumed touching up the picture to ease Helen's embarrassment. "Go on."
"I thought he was hopelessly in the power of that bad woman. So, I put my feeling for him out of my heart.... I know you're laughing at me. You're so cynical, Courtney. But a girl has got to do the best she can. And it's getting harder and harder for a poor girl to marry—that is, to marry a man with anything. And brought up as I've been I have to have nice surroundings. I want a good home—and—and—children—and they must be educated properly—and able to keep their place in our station of life."
"Certainly," reassured Courtney. "You did the practical, sensible thing."
"I know, what I did seems to bear out your ideas. You're always teasing me about my ideals being mostly pretense. Well, perhaps they are. It does look like it—doesn't it?"
"Everybody's are," said Courtney, squinting at the picture. "Ideals are paste pearls. One can wear much bigger and finer ones than of the real—and nobody knows they're paste—or need ever know if one's careful to avoid their being tested. I'm glad, dear, you weren't so foolish as you always insisted you'd be."
Helen looked as if her soul were freed of a huge weight. "I will say, Courtney, that I'd never think of confiding in any person who believes like me, while I always feel safe in confiding in you."
"Thank you," said Courtney with genuine gratitude. "You don't know what a flattering compliment that is.... So, you're engaged to Will Arbuthnot?"