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It was five o’clock in the lass doors of the Carone into the hills together to find their rest

A phone call north had told me that my mortalates As for the police and the press and all their inevitable questions, well, that would have to wait

And noaited alone for thewhy Marius hadn’t shown himself, why he had saved us only to vanish without a word

"And suppose it wasn’t Marius," Gabrielle had said anxiously as she paced the floor afterwards "I tell you I felt an overwheler to us as well as to them I felt it outside the auditoriu car So about it It wasn’t Marius, I’ almost barbaric about it," Louis had said "Ale," she had answered, glancing to himent "And even if it was Marius, what makes you think he didn’t save you so that he could take his private vengeance in his oay?"

"No," I had said, laughing softly "Marius doesn’t want revenge, or he would already have it, that much I know"

But I had been too excited just watching her, the old walk, the old gestures And ah, the frayed safari clothing After two hundred years, she was still the intrepid explorer She straddled the chair like a cohen she sat down, resting her chin on her hands on the high back

We had so much to talk about, to tell each other, and I was si afraid was too awful, because I kne I had made another serious miscalculation I’d realized it for the first time when the Porsche exploded with Louis still inside it This little war of er What a fool I’d been to think I could draw the venoht We had to be cunning We had to take great care

But for noere safe I’d told her that soothingly She and Louis didn’t feel the menace here; it had not followed us to the valley And I had never felt it And our young and foolish i that we possessed the power to incinerate them at will

"You know a thousand times, a thousand times, I pictured our reunion," Gabrielle said "And never once was it anything like this"

"I rather think it went splendidly!" I said "And don’t suppose for a otten us out of it! I was about to throttle that one with the scythe, toss hi I could have broken his about all this is I didn’t get the chance -- "

"You, Monsieur, are an absolute imp!" she said "You are impossible! You are -- what did Marius himself call you-the dahed delightedly Such sweet flattery And how lovely the old-fashioned French

And Louis had been so taken with her, sitting back in the shadows as he watched her, reticent, ain, as if his garments were entirely at his command, and we’d just come from the last act of La Traviata to watch the ne at the es clattered past

Feeling of the new coven fory, the denial of the huainst all tribes, all worlds And a profound feeling of safety, of unstoppable momentum -- how to explain that to the," I had said finally, hoping to settle it all, to create a moment of pure equanih to bum his enemies can find us anytime that he chooses, do exactly what he likes"

"And this should stop ?" she said

I saw Louis shake his head

"I don’t have your powers," he said unobtrusively, "nevertheless I felt this thing And I tell you it was alien, utterly uncivilized, for want of a better word"

"Ah, you’ve hit it again," Gabrielle interjected "It was co so removed"

"And your Marius is too civilized," Louis insisted, "too burdened with philosophy That’s why you know he doesn’t want revenge"

"Alien? Uncivilized?" I glanced at both of them "Why didn’t I feel this menace!" I asked

"Mon Dieu, it could have been anything," Gabrielle had said finally "That ht of last night’s eniger!" but it had been too close to dawn forIt wasat all

And now they were gone together, and I was standing alone before the glass doors watching the gleahter over the Santa Lucia Mountains, thinking:

"Where are you, Marius? Why the hell don’t you reveal yourself?" It could daaame to me that I didn’t really call out to him? I mean raise my secret voice with its full power, as he had told h all les, it had become such a matter of pride not to call to him, but what did that pride matter now?