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It was easy between us as always, with her listening to me, and then offering her own response without anger.

"Perhaps in time, you'll change your mind," she said. "You are the one with the power to go there, to fight those who would restrain him if you tried to take him. And that is what it would require, I think, that you would have to take him by force, insist that he come here to be with you, and see the Divine Parents. I don't possess the power to do these things. I ask only that you think on it, that you make no bitter iron resolve against it. "

"I give you my word," I said, "I have not done that. But I do not think the sight of the Divine Parents would change the heart of Amadeo. " I paused.

I thought on all this for a long moment and then I spoke to her more directly:

"You've only shared this knowledge with me for a brief time," I said. "And in the Divine Parents we both see great beauty. But Amadeo might well see something different. Remember what I've told you of the long centuries that lie behind me. The Divine Parents do not speak. The Divine Parents do not redeem. The Divine Parents ask for nothing. "

"I understand," she said.

But she didn't. She had not spent enough years with the King and Queen. She couldn't possibly comprehend the full effect of their passivity.

But I went on in a mild manner:

"Amadeo possesses a creed, and a seeming place in God's plan," I said. "He might well see our Mother and Father as an enigma belonging to a pagan era. That wouldn't warm his heart. That wouldn't give him the strength which he derives now from his flock, and believe you me, Bianca, he is the leader there. Our boy of long ago is old now; he is a sage of the Children of Darkness as they call themselves. " I sighed.

A little flash of bitter memory came back to me, of Santino asking me when we met in Rome if Those Who Must Be Kept were holy or profane.

I told this to Bianca.

"Ah, then you spoke to this creature. You've never told me this. "

"Oh, yes, I spoke to him and spurned him and insulted him. I did all of these foolish things when something more vicious was required. Indeed, when the very words 'Those Who Must Be Kept' had come from his lips, I should have put an end to him. "

She nodded. "I come more and more to understand it. Yet still I hope in time that you will return to Paris, that you will at least reveal yourself to Amadeo. They are weak ones, are they not, and you could come upon him in some open place where you could¡ª. "

"I know well what you mean to say," I answered. "I wouldn't allow myself ever to be surrounded by torches. Perhaps I will do as you suggest. But I've heard Amadeo's voice, and I don't believe he can be changed now. And there is one thing more which is worth mentioning. Amadeo knows how to free himself from this coven. "

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am. Amadeo knows how to live in the lighted world, and he is ten times stronger by virtue of my old blood than are those who listen to his commands. He could break away. He chooses not to do it. "

"Marius," she said plaintively, "you know how much I love you and how loath I am to contradict you. "

"No, say what you must say," I urged her at once.

"Think of what he suffered," she said. "He was but a child when it happened. "

I agreed to all this. Then I spoke again:

"Well, he's no child now, Bianca. He may be as beautiful as he was when I made him through the B

lood, but he is a patriarch in the dust. And all of Paris, the wondrous city of Paris, surrounds him. I watched him move through the city streets alone. There was no one there to restrict him. He might have sought the Evil Doer as we do. But he did not. He drank deep of innocent blood, not once but twice. "

"Ah, I see. This is what has so embittered you. "

I thought on it.

"Yes, you're right. It's what turned me away, though I didn't even know it. I thought it was the manner in which he spoke to his flock. But you are right. It was those two deaths, from which he drew his hot red feast, when Paris swarmed with mortals steeped in murder who might easily have been slain by him. "

She laid her hand on mine.

"If I choose to snatch any one of these Children of Darkness from his lair," I said, "it is Santino. "

"No, but you mustn't go to Rome. You don't know whether or not there are old ones among that coven. "

"Some night," I said, "some night I shall go there. When I am more certain of immense power, and when I am more certain of the ruthless rage it requires to destroy many others. "