English
Helen's hands clenched into demanding fists and she
closed her eyes, considering and discarding
answer after painful answer until only one, the sum
of the rest of her desires, remained. When at last she
spoke, her eyes were filled with tears but the words
came strong and even, as they always seemed to do
in the presence of this man. “Time! It will never be
enough. Death had no right to my mother, and as for
me, what is the difference between five years and
fifty? There will never be sufficient time for what I
long to do.”
“And what is that?”
“Live.” Her voice held just the the hint of a question.
“And if I offered you eternity, Helen, would you accept it?” His words were sincere but possessed a deceptive calm. He feared she would laugh or, worse, refuse.
She bowed her head and wiped away the tears with her fingertips. When she raised her eyes to his, their smoky depths revealed the puzzling hunger she had too long endured. He had told her to trust her instincts and she obeyed. “I would accept it, Stephen. There are times I believe I would sacrifice everything to possess it.”
Her desire was all he had hoped it would be, and so much more, and he knew a moment of uncertainty ... that she did not care for him but only for that which instinct had already told her he could bestow. Yet she was here, now, with him, and in this portion of eternity her presence was all that mattered.
Helen watched him, her eyes troubled. Eventually she asked, “What are you that you can offer me this? Are you a vam ... no, no, that’s impossible.” She concluded with a swift, anxious smile and stared down at her clasped hands. “Not impossible but not completely correct.”
He sat motionless but his tension crackled in the air like the lightning of a summer storm. “Is it so difficult to look at me when you speak of this?” she asked.
He turned toward her and, in a voice barely a whisper, he replied, “I have learned I must never confess what I am unless I am prepared to see, in the eyes of a friend or a lover, the painful deception that hides the loathing.”
“And do you see that in mine?”
“No,” he replied, his voice still soft but now triumphant. “I see the eyes of the woman I love.”