Marius had dressed for the occasion in smart dark blue velvet, with a cloak of the same color for once, which was unusual for him, and he had urged me to dress in sky blue, his favorite color for me. I carried the wine figs and sweet tarts in a basket for her.

We found her door open as always, and we entered unobtrusively, but she saw us at once.

The moment I saw her I felt a heartbreaking desire for a certain kind of intimacy, that is, I wanted to tell her everything that had happened! Of course this was forbidden, and that I could love her without confiding in her-this was something that Marius insisted I learn.

She got up and came to me, and put her arms around me, accepting the usual ardent kisses. I realized at once why Marius had insisted on two victims for this evening. I was warm and flushed with blood.

Bianca felt nothing that frightened her. She slipped her silken arms around my neck.

She was radiant in a dress of yellow silk tissue and dark-green velvet, the underdress of yellow, powdered with embroidered roses, and her white breasts were barely covered as only a courtesan would have them.

When I began to kiss her, careful to conceal my tiny fanged teeth from her, I felt no hunger because the blood of my victims had been more than enough. I kissed her with love and love only, my mind quickly plunging into heated erotic memories, my body surely demonstrating the urgency that it had had with her in the past. I wanted to touch her all over, as a blind man might touch a sculpture, the better to see each curve of her with his hands.

"Oh, you're not only well, you're splendid," Bianca said. "You and Marius, come in, come, let's go into the next room." She made a careless gesture to her guests, who were all busy anyway, talking, arguing, playing cards in small groups. She drew us with her into her more intimate parlor adjacent to the bedroom, a room cluttered with frightfully expensive damask chairs and couches, and told me to sit down.

I remembered the candles, that I must never get too close to them, but must use the shadows so no mortal would have an optimum opportunity to study my changed and more perfect skin.

This wasn't so hard as, in spite of her love of light and her penchant for luxury, she had the candelabra scattered for the mood.

The lack of light would also make the sparkle of my eyes less noticeable; I knew this too. And the more I spoke, the more animated I became, the more human I would appear.

Stillness was dangerous for us when we were among mortals, Marius had taught me, for in stillness we appear flawless and unearthly and finally even faintly horrible to mortals, who sense that we are not what we seem.

I followed all these rules. But I was overcome with anxiety that I could never tell her what had been done to me. I started to talk. I explained that the illness had abated entirely, but that Marius, wiser by far than any physician, had ordered solitude and rest. When I had not been in bed, I had been alone, struggling to regain my strength.