“But wait, please, Benji,” said Marius. “I’m at a disadvantage here. What poetry was it exactly that the Voice recited?”

“Yeats, Master,” said Benji with a deeper more referential bow. “Yeats, ‘The Second Coming’: ‘And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.’ ”

And he was off without another word for his studio upstairs, tipping his hat as he passed Pandora and Chrysanthe. And the music filled the room again—the throbbing, rushing sound of “The Carousel Waltz.”

Gregory moved back, close to the wall, watching the dancers as they resumed. Then he realized that Davis was at his side. He felt the cool touch of Davis’s hand on his.

“Dance with me,” said Davis. “Come dance at my side.”

“How?”

“Oh, you know. You’ve always known. The way men have always danced. Think back. Long ago, you must have danced with other men.” Davis’s eyes were moist, searching. Davis was smiling, and he seemed utterly trusting, trusting in Gregory somehow no matter what the future held. How sweet was that trust.

Gregory did think back, yes. Back and back, he went through the memories to those long-ago human nights in ancient Kemet when he had danced, danced with other men, danced at the banquets of the court until he’d fallen down in bliss and exhaustion with the drums still pounding in his ears.

“Very well,” he said to Davis. “You lead the way.”

How marvelous it was to be drifting into the ancient patterns yet bound up in this new romantic music. How natural it suddenly seemed. And though his eyes were half closed and for a moment all his fear and apprehension was forgotten, he was conscious that other male immortals were dancing too, all around him, each in his own way. Flavius was dancing. Flavius of the miracle limb dancing with that limb. It seemed everyone was dancing; everyone was caught up in this raw and relentless music; everyone had yielded to it, and to this unprecedented and extraordinary moment that stretched on and on.

An hour had passed. Maybe more.

Gregory wandered the house. The music filled it, seemed to reverberate in the very beams.

In an open library, a pretty French library, he saw Pandora talking with Flavius by a gas fire. Flavius was weeping and Pandora was stroking his head, lovingly, tenderly.

“Oh, yes, but we have time now to talk about all of it,” she said to him softly. “I have always loved you, loved you from the night I made you, and you have always been in my heart.”

“There’s so much I want to tell you. There’s this longing for a continuity, for you to know.”

“To be your witness, yes, I understand.”

“Still, after all this time, this unimaginable time, I have these fears.”

Fears.