We stick on that point.

I try to assert my manly authority, but manly authority doesn't faze Helen much.

She has some kind of theory about the economic independence of woman.

You know anything about it, Katie ?" "You forget that I'm one of the doll-baby girls," she replied in a light voice which trailed a little bitterness on behind.
"Not you! Just before I left I said to Helen: 'Well there's at least one relative of mine who will have sense enough to appreciate you, and that's my corking cousin Katie Jones!'" That lured feminine Kate outside again.

"Fred," she asked, moved by her never slumbering impulse to find out about things, "just what is it you care for in Helen?
Is she pretty?
Funny?
Sympathetic?
Clever?
What ?" She watched his face as he tried to frame it.