I was shocked.

“What do you mean?” Lestat demanded. “What on earth can you mean? I think I’ve been a gentleman about it.” He smiled at Stirling for the first time.

“Yes, you’ve been a gentleman,” Stirling responded. “But I hardly think you’ve been restrained.”

“Do you know how it affects me to be driven out of New Orleans?” Lestat asked, voice still tempered. “Do you know how it affects me to know I can’t wander the French Quarter for fear of your spies in the Café du Monde, or wander the Rue Royale with the evening shoppers, just because one of your glorified gossips might be wandering about too? Do you know how it wounds me to leave behind the one city in the world with which I’m truly in love?”

Stirling roused himself at these words. “But haven’t you always been too clever for us?” he asked.

“Well, of course,” Lestat rejoined with a shrug.

“Besides,” Stirling went on, “you haven’t been driven out. You’ve been here. You’ve been seen by our members, sitting very boldly in the Café du Monde, I might add, presiding over a hot cup of useless café au lait.”

I was stunned.

“Stirling!” I whispered. “For the love of Christ, don’t argue.”

Again Lestat looked at me, but not with anger. He returned to Stirling.

Stirling hadn’t finished. He went on firmly: “You still feed off the riffraff,” he said. “The authorities don’t care, but we recognize the patterns. We know it’s you.”

I was mortified. How could Stirling talk like this?

Lestat broke into an irrepressible laugh.

“And even so, you came by night?” he demanded. “You dared to come, knowing I might find you here?”

“I think . . .” Stirling hesitated, then went on. “I think I wanted to challenge you. I think, as I said, that I committed a sin of pride.”

Thank God for this confession, I thought. “Committed a sin”—really good words. I was quaking, watching the two of them, appalled by Stirling’s fearless tone.

“We respect you,” said Stirling, “more than you deserve.”

I gasped.

“Oh, do explain that to me!” said Lestat, smiling. “In what form comes this respect, I should like to know. If I’m truly in your debt, I should like to say thanks.”

“St. Elizabeth’s,” said Stirling, his voice rolling gracefully now, “the building where you lay for so many years, sleeping on the chapel floor. We’ve never sought to enter it or discover what goes on there. And as you said we’re very good at bribing guards. Your Chronicles made your sleep famous. And we knew that we could penetrate the building. We could glimpse you in the daylight hours, unprotected, lying on the marble. What a lure that was—the sleeping vampire who no longer bothered with the trappings of a coffin. A dark deadly inverse of the sleeping King Arthur, waiting for England to need him again. But we never crept into your enormous lodgings. As I said, I think we respected you more than you deserve.”