bananas was already thriving in the corner, long graceful knifelike leaves nodding in the 
breeze.
  
  This gladdened my vicious selfish little heart beyond words.
  
  I went inside. The back parlour had finally been finished, and beautifully laid out 
with the fine antique chairs I'd selected for it, and the thick pale Persian carpet of 
faded red.
  
  I looked up and down the length of the hallway, past the fresh wallpaper of gold and 
white stripes, and over the yards of dark carpet, and I saw Louis standing in the front 
parlour door.
  
  "Don't ask me where I've been or what I've done," I said. I walked towards him, brushed 
him aside, and went into the room. Ah, it surpassed all my expectations. There were a 
very replica of his old desk between the windows, and the camelback sofa of silver 
damask, and the oval table inlaid with mahogany. And the spinet against the far wall.
  
  "I know where you've been," he said, "and I know what you've done."
  
  "Oh? And what's to follow? Some stultifying and endless lecture? Tell me now. So I can 
go to sleep."
  
  I turned around to face him, to see what effect this stiff rebuff had had, if any, and 
there stood David beside him, dressed very well in black fine-combed velvet, and with his 
arms folded across his chest, and leaning against the frame of the door.
  
  They were both looking at me, with their pale, expressionless faces, David presenting 
the darker, taller figure, but how amazingly similar they appeared. It only penetrated to 
me slowly that Louis had dressed for this little occasion, and for once, in clothes which 
did not look as if they'd come from an attic trunk.
  
  It was David who spoke first.
  
  "The carnival starts tomorrow in Rio," he said, the voice even more seductive than it 
had ever been in mortal life. "I thought we might go."
  
  I stared at him with obvious suspicion. It seemed a dark light infused his expression. 
There was a hard luster to his eyes. But the mouth was so gentle, without a hint of 
malevolence, or bitterness. No menace emanated from him at all.
  
  Then Louis roused himself from his reverie and quietly moved away down the hall and 
into his old room. How I knew that old pattern of faintly creaking boards and steps!
  
  I was powerfully confused, and a little breathless.
  
  I sat down on the couch, and beckoned for Mojo to come, who seated himself right in 
front of me, leaning his heavy weight against my legs.
  
  "You mean this?" I asked. "You want us to go there together?" I asked.
  
  "Yes," he said. "And after that, the rain forests. What if we should go there? Deep 
into those forests." He unfolded his arms and, bowing his head, began to pace with long 
slow steps. "You said something to me, I don't remember when... Maybe it was an image I 
caught from you before it all happened, something about a temple which mortals didn't 
know of, lost in the depths of the jungle. Ah, think of how many such discoveries there 
must be."
  
  Ah, how genuine the feeling, how resonant the voice.
  
  "Why have you forgiven me?" I asked.
  
  He stopped his pacing, and looked at me, and I was so distracted by the evidence of the 
blood in him, and how it had changed his skin and hair and eyes, that I couldn't think 
for a moment. I held up my hand, begging him not to speak. Why did I never get used to 
this magic? I dropped my hand, allowing him, nay, bidding him, to go on.
  
  "You knew I would," he said, assuming his old measured and restrained tone. "You knew 
when you did it that I'd go on loving you. That I'd need you. That I would seek you out 
and cling to you of all the beings in this world."
  
  "Oh, no. I swear I didn't," I whispered.
  
  "I went off awhile to punish you. You're past all patience, really you are. You are the 
damnedest creature, as you've been called by wiser beings than I. But you knew I'd come 
back. You knew I'd be here."
  
  "No, I never dreamt it."
  
  "Don't start weeping again."
  
  "I like to weep. I must. Why else would I do it so much?"
  
  "Well, stop!"
  
  "Oh, it's going to be fun, isn't it? You think you are the leader of this little coven, 
don't you, and you're going to start bossing me around."
  
  "Come again?"
  
  "You don't even look like the elder of the two of us anymore, and you never were the 
elder. You let my beautiful and irresistible visage deceive you in the simplest and most 
foolish way. I'm the leader. This is my house. I shall say if we go to Rio."
  
  He began to laugh. Slowly at first, and then more deeply and freely. If there was 
menace in him it was only in the great flashing shifts of expression, the dark glint in 
his eyes. But I wasn't sure there was any menace at all.
  
  "You are the leader?" he asked scornfully. The old authority.