She seemed not to hear him. Her eyes still stared straight in front of her. "He's coming," she whispered. "It will be the end!"
CHAPTER XX
THE LID OF THE GRAVE
In a little room of a poor hotel situated on a back street of the city of New Orleans, a man bent over an old trunk which had that day been unearthed from a long-time hiding-place. It had for years been left unopened. It was like opening a grave now to raise its cover. The man almost shuddered as he bent over and looked in, curious as though these things had never before met his gaze. There was a dull odor of dead flowers long boxed up. A faint rustling as of intangible things became half audible, as though spirits passed out at this contact with the outer air.
"Twelve years ago—and this is the sort of luggage I carried then," he mused. "What taste! What a foolish boy! Dear me. Well—what?" His bravado failed him. He started, fearing something. Yet presently he peered in.
It was like a grave, yet one where some beneficent or some cruel process of nature had resisted the way of death and change. "Foolish boy!" he muttered, as he peered in and saw Life as it had been for him when he had shut down the lid. "God! it's strange. There ought to be a picture or so near the top." He touched the tray, and the dead flowers and dry papers rustled again until he started back. His face, tired, dissipated, deeply lined, went all the paler, but presently he delved in again.
"Pictures of myself, eh? the first thing. I was always first thing to myself. Nice, clean boy, wasn't I? Wouldn't have known it was myself. Might have been a parson, almost. Here's another. Militia uniform, all that. Might have been a major, almost. Uh-hum! High school diploma here—very important. Eighteen—great God, was it so long ago as that? University diploma—Latin. Can't read it now. Might have been a professor, mightn't I? Diploma of law school; also Latin. Certificate of admission to the bar of—. Might have been a lawyer. Might have been a judge, mightn't I? Might have a home now; white, green blinds, brick walk up to the door, paling fence—that kind of thing. Might have had a home—wife and babies—eh! Baby? Children? What? Well, I couldn't call this much of a home, could I, now?"
He unfolded some old newspapers and periodicals of a departed period, bearing proof of certain of his own handicraft. "Might have been a writer—poet—that sort of thing!" He smiled quizzically. "Not so bad. Not so bad. I couldn't do as well to-day, I'm afraid. Seem to have lost it—let go somewhere. I never could depend on myself—never could depend—ah, what's this? Yes, here are the ladies, God bless them—la-ladies—God bless 'em!"
The lower tray was filled with pictures of girls or women of all types, some of them beautiful, some of them coarse, most of them attractive from a certain point of view. "God! what a lot!" he murmured. "How did I do it? By asking, I reckon. Six—six—six of one—six of another. Women and men alike, eh? Well, I don't know. Ask 'em, you win. Or, don't ask 'em, you win."
His hand fell upon the frame of a little mirror laid away in the old trunk. He picked it up and gazed steadily at what it revealed. "Changed," he said, "changed a lot. Must have gone a pace, eh? Lawyer. Judge. Writer-man. Poet. I thought these beat all of that,"— and he looked down again at the smiling faces. He picked them up one at a time and laid them on the bed beside him. "Alice, Nora, Clara, Kate, Margaret—I'll guess at the names, and guess at some of the faces now. It's the same, all alike, the hunting of love: the hunting—the hunt—ing—of—love! Great thing. But of course we never do find it, do we? Ladies, good night." This he said in half- mocking solemnity.