In the absence of June, Delphine the cook went through the agony of waiting on the table, very nervous and embarrassed in her clean calico gown and starched apron.  Her hands were red and knotty, smelling of soap, and they touched the chinaware with an over-zealous and constraining tenderness as if the plates and dishes had been delicate glass butterflies.  She stood off at a distance from the table making sudden and awkward dabs at it.  When it came to passing the plates, she passed them on the wrong side and remembered herself at the wrong moment with a stammering apology.  In her excess of politeness she kept up a constant murmur as she attended to their wants.  Another fork?  Yes, sir.  She’d get it right away, sir.  Did Mrs. Ravis want another cuppa tea?  No?  No more tea?  Well, she’d pass the bread.  Some bread, Master Howard?  Nice French bread, he always liked that.  Some more preserved pears, Miss Ravis?  Yes, miss, she’d get them right away; they were just over here on the sideboard.  Yes, here they were.  No more?  Now she’d go and put them back.  And at last when she had set the nerves of all of them in a jangle, was dismissed to the kitchen and retired with a gasp of unspeakable relief.

Somewhat later in the evening young Haight was alone with Turner, and their conversation had taken a very unusual and personal turn.  All at once Turner exclaimed: 

“I often wonder what good I am in the world to anybody.  I don’t know a thing, I can’t do a thing.  I couldn’t cook the plainest kind of a meal to save me, and it took me all of two hours yesterday to do just a little buttonhole stitching.  I’m not good for anything.  I’m not a help to anybody.”

Young Haight looked into the blue flame of the gas-log, almost the only modern innovation throughout the entire house, and was silent for a moment; then he leaned his elbows on his knees and, still looking at the flame, replied: 

“I don’t know about that.  You have been a considerable help to me.”

“To you!” exclaimed Turner, surprised.  “A help to you?  Why, how do you mean?”

“Well,” he answered, still without looking at her, “one always has one’s influence, you know.”

“Ah, lots of influence I have over anybody,” retorted Turner, incredulously.

“Yes, you have,” he insisted.  “You have plenty of influence over the people that care for you.  You have plenty of influence over me.”

Turner, very much embarrassed, and not knowing how to answer, bent down to the side of the mantelpiece and turned up the flame of the gas-log a little.  Young Haight continued, almost as embarrassed as she: