“Why guilty?” asked Raymond.

“Because none of us were worth it, old chap,” said Quintan.

“I’m sure she never thought so,” observed Raymond.

“My aunt’s rather an unusual woman,” said Quintan.  “She has voluntarily played second fiddle all her life; and, between you and me, you know, my mother’s a bit of a tyrant, and not always easy to get along with—­so it wasn’t so simple a game as it looks.”

Raymond was shocked at this way of putting the matter.

“You mean she sacrificed the best years of her life for you,” he said stiffly.

“Women are like that—­good women,” said Quintan.  “Catch a man being such a fool—­looking at it generally, you know—­me apart.  She had a tidy little fortune from her father, and might have had a yard of her own to play in, but our little baby hands held her tight.”

Raymond regarded his companion’s hands.  They were large and red, and rough with the hard work on board the Dixie; regarded them respectfully, almost with awe, for had they not restrained that glorious being in the full tide of her youth and beauty!

“Now it’s too late,” said Quintan.

“What do you mean by too late?” asked the quartermaster.

“Well, she’s passed forty,” said Quintan.  “The babies have grown up, and the selfish beasts are striking out for themselves.  Her occupation’s gone, and she’s left plante la.  Worse than that, my mother, who never bothered two cents about us then, now loves us to distraction.  And, when all’s said, you know, it’s natural to like your mother best!”

“Too bad!” ejaculated Raymond.

“I call it deuced hard luck,” said Quintan.  “My mother really neglected us shamefully, and it was Aunt Christine who brought us up and blew our noses and rubbed us with goose-grease when we had croup, and all that kind of thing.  Then, when we grew up, my mother suddenly discovered her long-lost children and began to think a heap of us—­after having scamped the whole business for fifteen years—­and my aunt, who was the real nigger in the hedge, got kind of let out, you see.”

Raymond did not see, and he was indignant, besides, at the coarseness of his companion’s expressions.  So he walked along and said nothing.

“And, as I said before, it’s now too late,” said Quintan.

“Too late for what?” demanded Raymond, who was deeply interested.

“For her to take up with anybody else,” said Quintan.  “To marry, you know.  She sacrificed all her opportunities for us; and now, in the inevitable course of things, we are kind of abandoning her when she is old and faded and lonely.”

“I consider your aunt one of the most beautiful women in the world,” protested Raymond.

“But you can’t put back the clock, old fellow,” said Quintan.  “What has the world to offer to an old maid of forty-two?  There she is in the empty nest, and not her own nest at that, with all her little nestlings flying over the hills and far away, and the genuine mother-bird varying the monotony by occasionally pecking her eyes out.”