He was faithful to that name until he died. For he died too, though more slowly than she had. The boy of twenty-two died into a young man of twenty-nine. Then he in turn was still faithful to the name his predecessor had been faithful to, until he too died. The young man of twenty-nine died into an older man of thirty-six.
And suddenly, one day, the cumulative loneliness of fifteen years, held back until now, overwhelmed him, all at one time, inundated him, and he turned this way and that, almost in panic.
Any love, from anywhere, on any terms. Quick, before it was too late t Only not to be alone any longer.
If he'd met someone in a restaurant just then--
Or even if he'd met someone passing on the street--
But he didn't.
His eye fell, instead, on an advertisement in a newspaper. A St. Louis advertisement in a New Orleans newspaper.
You cannot walk away from love.
His contemplation ended. The sound of carriage wheels stopping somewhere just outside caused him to insert the likeness into his money-fold, and pocket that. He went out to the second-story veranda and looked down. The sun suddenly whitened his back like flour as he leaned over the railing, pressing down the smouldering magenta bougainvillea that feathered its edges.
A colored man was coming into the inner courtyard or patio-well through the passageway from the street.
"What took you so long?" Durand called down to him. "Did you get my flowers?" The question was wholly rhetorical, for he could see the cone-shaped parcel, misty pink peering through its waxwrappings at the top.
"Sure enough did."
"Did you get me a coach?"
"It's here waiting for you now."
"I thought you'd never get hack," he went on. "You been gone all of--"
The Negro shook his head in philosophical good nature. "A man in love is a man in a hurry."
"Well, come on up, Tom," was the impatient suggestion. "Don't just stand down there all day."
Humorous grin still unbroken, Tom resumed his progress, passed from sight under the near side of the façade. Several moments later the outermost door of the apartment opened and he had entered behind the owner.
The latter turned, went over to him, seized the bouquet, and pared off its outer filmy trappings, with more nervous haste than painstaking care.
"You going give it to her, or you going tear it to pieces?" the colored man inquired drily.
"Well, I have to see, don't I? Do you think she'll like pink roses and sweet peas, Tom ?" There was a plaintive helplessness to the last part of the question, as when one grasps at straws.
"Don't all ladies ?"
"I don't know. The only girls I--" He didn't finish it.
"Oh, them," said Tom charitably. "The man said they do," he went on. "The man said that's what they all ask for." He fluffed the lace-paper collar encircling them with proprietary care, restoring its pertness.
Durand was hastily gathering together his remaining accoutrements, meanwhile, preparatory to departure.
"I want to go to the new house first," he said, on a somewhat breathless note.
"You was there only yesterday," Tom pointed out. "If you stay away only one day, you afraid it's going to fly away, I reckon."
"I know, but this is the last chance I'll have to make sure everything's-- Did you tell your sister? I want her to be there when we arrive."
"She'll be there."
Durand stopped with his hand to the doorknob, looked around in a comprehensive sweep, and suddenly the tempo of his departure had slackened to almost a full halt.
"This'll be the last time for this place, Tom."
"It was nice and quiet here, Mr. Lou," the servant admitted. "Anyway, the last few years, since you started getting older."
There was a renewed flurry of departure, as if brought on by this implicit warning of the flight of time. "You finish up the packing, see that my things get over there. Don't forget to give the keys back to Madame Tellier before you leave."
He stopped again, doorknob at a full turn now but door still not open.
"What's the matter, Mr. Lou?"
"I'm scared now. I'm afraid she--" He swallowed down his rigid ear-high collar, backed a hand to his brow to blot imperceptible moisture, "--won't like me."
"You look all right to me."
"It's all been by letters so far. It's easy in letters."
"You sent her your picture. She knows what you look like," Tom tried to encourage him.
"A picture is a picture. A live man is a live man."
Tom went over to him where he stood, dejectedly sidewise now to the door, dusted off his coat at the back of his shoulder. "You're not the best-looking man in N'Orleans. But you're not the worstlooking man in N'Orleans either."
"Oh, I don't mean that kind of looks. Our dispositions-"
"Your ages suit each other. You told her yours."
"I took a year off it. I said I was thirty-six. It sounded better."
"You can make her right comfortable, Mr. Lou."
Durand nodded with alacrity at this, as though for the first time he felt himself on safe ground. "She won't be poor."
"Then I wouldn't worry too much about it. When a man's in love, he looks for looks. When a lady's in love, 'scusing me, Mr. Lou, she looks to see how well-off she's going to be."
Durand brightened. "She won't have to scrimp." He raised his head suddenly, as at a new discovery. "Even if I'm not all she might hope for, she'll get used to me."
"You want to-just make sure?" Tom fumbled in his own clothing, yanked at a concealed string somewhere about his chest, produced a rather worn and limp rabbit's foot, a small gilt band encircling it as a mounting. He offered it to him.
"Oh, I don't believe in--" Durand protested sheepishly.
"They ain't a white man willing to say he do," Tom chuckled. "They ain't a white man don't, just the same. Put it in your pocket anyway. Can't do no harm."
Durand stuffed it away guiltily. He consulted his watch, closed it again with a resounding clap.
"I'm late! I don't want to miss the boat!" This time he flung the symbolic door wide and crossed the threshold of his bachelorhood.
"You got the better part of an hour before her stack even climb up in sight 'long the river, I reckon."
But Louis Durand, bridegroom-to-be, hadn't even waited. He was clattering down Madame Tellier's tile-faced stairs outside at a resounding gait. A moment later an excited hail came up through the window from the courtyard below.
Tom strolled to the second-story veranda.
"My hat! Throw it down." Durand was jumping up and down in impatience.
Tom threw it down and retired.
A second later there was another hail, even more agonized.
"My stick! Throw that down too."
That dropped, was seized deftly on the fly. A little puff of suncolored dust arose from Madame Tellier's none-too-immaculate flagstones.
Tom turned away, shaking his head resignedly.
"A man in love's a man in a hurry, sure enough."
2
The coach drove briskly down St. Louis Street. Durand sat straining forward on the edge of the seat, both hands topping his cane-head and the upper part of his body supported by it. Suddenly he leaned still further forward.
"That one," he exclaimed, pointing excitedly. "That one right there."
"The new one, cunnel ?" the coachman marveled admiringly.
"I'm building it myself," Durand let him know with an atavistic burst of boyish pride, sixteen years late. Then he qualified it, "T mean, they're doing it according to my plans. I told them how I wanted it."
The coachman scratched his head. A gesture not meant to indicate perplexity in this instance, but of being overwhelmed by such grandeur. "Sure is pretty," he said.
The house was two stories in height. It was of buff brick, with white trim about the windows and the doorway. It was not large, but it occupied an extremely advantageous position. It sat on a corner plot, so that it faced both ways at once, without obstruction. Moreover, the ground-plot itself extended beyond the house, if not lavishly at least amply, so that it touched none of its neighbors. There was room left for strips of sod in the front, and for a garden in the back.