Page 3 (1/2)

"Sybelle and Benji will be with me when you want them," he said "You can find us We aren't far You'll hear the Appassionato when you want to hear it " He smiled

"You've given her a piano," I said I spoke of golden Sybelle I had shut out the world fro, and I didn't want just yet to unstop , which I already missed overly much

As soon as we'd entered the convent, Sybelle had seen a piano and asked in a whisper at my ear if she could play it It was not in the chapel where Lestat lay, but off in another long eht disturb Lestat as he lay there, and we couldn't knohat he thought, or what he felt, or if he was anguished and trapped in his own dreams

"Perhaps when you come, you'll stay for a while," Marius said "You'll like the sound of her playing ether, and you can rest with us, and we can share the house for as long as you like "

I didn't answer

"It's palatial in a New World sort of way," he said with a little mockery in his sardens and old oaks, oaks far older than those even out there on the Avenue, and all the s are doors You kno I like it that way It's the Ro rain, and the spring rain here is like a dream "

"Yes, I know," I whispered "I think it's falling now, isn't it?" I smiled

"Well, I'aily "You coht, then tomorrow?

"Oh, I'll be there tonight," I said I didn't want to offend hih of white-faced monsters with velvet voices It was time to be off

I looked at hi a shyness that had been our curse in this loried in his clothes as men did then, always so sharp and splendidly eraceful phrase When he crossed the Piazza San Marco in the soft purple of evening, all turned to watch hi cape, and old silk tissue, so very popular in those times

He'd had the hair of a young Lorenzo de' Medici, right from the painted wall

"Master, I love you, but now I must be alone," I said "You don't need me now, do you, Sir? How can you? You never really did " Instantly I regretted it The words, not the tone, were i so divided by intimate blood, I was afraid he'd misunderstand

"Cherub, I want you," he said forgivingly "But I can wait Seeether, and so I say theain "

I couldn't bring myself to tell hied just to be talking away the night with little Benji, as such a sage, or listening to ain It seemed beside the point to explain any further And the sadness ca come to this forlorn and e to move or speak, none of us knew

"Nothing will corantyou, surely, so that when this time passes" I let my words die