"Oh, that's what I like!" said Quintan. "I never got a glance when I used to sport a silk hat. Besides, here we are at the old stand!"
Raymond regarded him with blank surprise as they turned aside and up the steps of one of the houses.
"Land's sake!" he exclaimed; "you don't mean to say you live in a place like this? Here?" he added, with an intonation that caused Howard to burst out laughing.
The young fellow pushed by the footman that admitted them and ran up the stairs three steps at a time. Raymond followed more slowly, dazed by the splendour he saw about him, and feeling horribly embarrassed and deserted. He halted on the stairs as he saw Quintan throw his arms about a tall, stately, magnificently dressed woman and kiss her boisterously; and he was in two minds whether or not to slink down again and disappear, when his companion called out to him to hurry up.
"Mother, this is Mr. Raymond," he said. "He's the best friend I have on the Dixie, and you're to be awfully good to him!"
Mrs. Quintan graciously gave him her hand and said something about his kindness to her boy. Raymond was too stricken to speak and was thankful for the semi-darkness that hid his face. Mrs. Quintan continued softly, in the same sweet and overpowering manner, to purr her gratitude and try to put him at his ease. Raymond would have been a happy man could he have sunk though the parquetry floor. He trembled as he was led into the drawing-room, where another gracious and overpowering creature rose to receive them.
"My aunt, Miss Christine Latimer," said Howard.
She was younger than Mrs. Quintan; a tall, fair woman of middle age, with a fine figure, hair streaked with grey, and the remains of what had once been extreme beauty. Her voice was the sweetest Raymond had ever listened to, and his shyness and agitation wore off as she began to speak to him. He was left a long while alone with her, for Howard and his mother withdrew, excusing themselves on the score of private matters. Christine Latimer was touched by the forlorn quartermaster, who, in his nervousness, gripped his chair with clenched hands and started when he was asked a question. She soon got him past this stage of their acquaintance, and, leading him on by gentle gradations to talk about himself, even learned his whole story, and that in so unobtrusive a fashion that he was hardly aware of his having told it to her.
"I am speaking to you as though I had known you all my life," he said in an artless compliment. "I hope it is not very forward of me. It is your fault for being so kind and good."
He was ecstatic when he left the house with Quintan.