Important plot developments in McCarthy's The Group

Two big scenes (chapters, essentially) in Mary McCarthy's thoroughly engaging and surprisingly contemporary novel The Group (1963), the first of which involves Helena - somewhat unconventional daughter of Cleveland steel baron - going to Norine's (?) house. The night before, at the party to celebrate the sale of Harald's play, Helena had intruded on Harald and N engaged in a passionate kiss. Helena is sure that No has summoned her to beg her not to "tell," which she has no intention of doing. The conversation, however, becomes weird, as N tells H that N's husband, a labor-rights activist, is impotent and they have no sex life. N confesses that she's had an ongoing affair w/ Harald, and he's not the only one. Helena proves to be extremely level-headed and offers a slew of advice such that we think she should become a counselor or an advice columnist (she does in fact write the Vassar class notes for the alumnae bulletin). She also - or MMcM actually, provides a great description of the dirt and squalor in N's apartment, and she makes it clear that the impotent husband (I'm forgetting his name) is a nasty guy, always harping on $ and keeping track of N's expenditures down to the nickel: Let it be said that all the young men in this novel are nasty and oafish. Second great scene involves Dottie, a Boston Brahmin, whom in chapter two had, as MMcM relates in painful detail, her first sexual relationship, w/ a man (Dick) who made it clear he could never fall in love w/ her. As it happens, Dottie, who is engaged to a wealthy Arizona widower (she has moved to Ariz for her health - and perhaps to get away from a relationship gone sour and the accompanying depression), tells her mother - they are in the process of buying wedding gowns and engraved invitations - that she is still in love w/ Dick. Her mother is extremely understanding, and encourages D to delay the wedding, as she recognizes that her daughter must get this first love out of her system, so to speak, or else the marriage will fail. Dottie is ambivalent about this. Finally, a minor scandal has broken out as Harald and N's husband were arrested for leading a demonstration about unionized restaurant workers, an event that got their pictures in all of the newspapers (even out-of-town), a bit of a stretch but so be it. In particular, we see the reaction to the arrests in the home of Pokey, probably the wealthiest in the Group, whose family living in a Manhattan mansion with service (an English butler in particular); P, to the puzzlement of all, is at Cornell studying to become a vet; her family has bought her an airplane, which she has learned to pilot and which she uses to commute to Ithaca. That sounds a little ominous to me; we'll see.