their house to be alone. No one of the Theatre des Vampires knows of my coming here. This is my secret.'
"I had watched him intently as he was speaking, and thoughts which had occurred to me in the cell at the theater occurred to me again. Vampires do not age, and I wondered how his youthful face and manner might differ now from what he had been a century before or a century before that; for his face, though not deepened by the lessons of maturity, was certainly no mask. It seemed powerfully expressive as was his unobtrusive voice, and I was at a loss finally to fully anatomize why. I knew only I was as powerfully drawn to him as before; and to some extent the words I spoke now were a subterfuge.'But what holds you to 'the Theatre des Vampires?' I asked.
"'A need, naturally. But I've found what I need,' he said.'Why do you shun me?'
"'I never shunned you,' I said, trying to hide the excitement these words produced in me.'You understand I have to protect Claudia, that she has no one but me. Or at least she had no one until...
"'Until Madeleine came to live with you....
"'Yes... ' I said.
Chapter 27
" But now Claudia has released you, yet still yon stay with her, and stay bound to her as your paramour,' he said.
"'No, she's no paramour of mine; you don't understand,' I said.'Rather, she's my child, and I don't know that she can release me.... ' These were thoughts I'd gone over and over in my mind.'I don't knew if the child possesses the power to release the parent. I don't know that I won't be bound to her for as long as she '
"I stopped. I was gong to say,'for as long as she lives.' But I realized it was a hollow mortal clicle6. She would live forever, as I would live forever. But wasn't it so for mortal fathers? Their daughters live forever because these fathers die first. I was at a loss suddenly; but conscious all the while of how Armand listened: that he listened in the way that we dream of others listening, his face seeming to reflect on every thing said. He did not start forward to seize on my slightest pause, to assert an understanding of something before the thought was finished, or to argue with a swift, irresistible impulse-the things which often make dialogue impossible.
"And after a long interval he said,'I want you. I want you more than anything in the world.'
"For a moment I doubted what I'd heard. It struck me as unbelievable. And I was hopelessly disarmed by it, and the wordless vision of our living together expanded and obliterated every other consideration in my mind.
"'I said that I want you. I want you more than anything in the world,' he repeated, with only a subtle change of expression. And then he sat waiting, watching. His face was as tranquil as always, his smooth, white forehead beneath the shock of his auburn hair without a trace of care, his large eyes reflecting on me, his lips still.
"'You want this of me, yet you don't come to me,' he said:'There are things you want to know, and you don't ask. You see Claudia slipping away from you, yet you seem powerless to prevent it, and then you would hasten it, and yet you do nothing.!
" 'I don't understand my own feelings. Perhaps they are clearer to you than they are to me.... '
"'You don't begin to know what a mystery you are!' he said.
"'But at least you know yourself thoroughly. I can't claim that,' I said.'I love her, yet I am not close to her. I mean that when I am with you as I am now, I know that I know nothing of her, nothing of anyone.'
"'She's an era for you, an era of your life. If and when you break with her, you break with the only one alive who has shared that time with you. You fear that, the isolation of it, the burden, the scope of eternal life.'
"'Yes, that's true, but that's only a small part of it. The era, it doesn't mean much to me. She made it mean something. Other vampires must experience this and survive it, the passing of a hundred eras.'
"'But they don't survive it,' he said.'The world would be choked with vampires if they survived it. How do you think I come to be the eldest here or anywhere?'