“It’s a bigger house than the royal concert in Madrid, ma.  Why, I never saw anything like it!  It’s a stampede.  God, this is real—­this is what gets me, playing for my own!  I should have given a concert like this three years ago.  I’ll do it every year now.  I’d rather play before them than all the crowned heads on earth.  It’s the biggest night of my life—­they’re rioting out there, ma—­rioting to get in.”

“Leon, Leon, won’t you sit down if mamma begs you to?”

He sat then, strumming with all ten fingers upon his knees.

“Try to get quiet, son.  Count—­like you always do.  One—­two—­three—­”

“Please ma—­for God’s sake—­please—­please!”

“Look—­such beautiful roses!  From Sol Ginsberg, an old friend of papa’s he used to buy brasses from eighteen years ago.  Six years he’s been away with his daughter in Munich.  Such a beautiful mezzo, they say, engaged already for Metropolitan next season.”

“I hate it, ma, if they breathe on my neck.”

“Leon darlink, did mamma promise to fix it?  Have I ever let you plan a concert where you wouldn’t be comfortable?”

His long, slim hands suddenly prehensile and cutting a long, upward gesture, Leon Kantor rose to his feet, face whitening.

“Do it now!  Now, I tell you!  I won’t have them breathe on me.  Do you hear me?  Now!  Now!  Now!”

Risen also, her face soft and tremulous for him, Mrs. Kantor put out a gentle, a sedative hand upon his sleeve.

“Son,” she said, with an edge of authority even behind her smile, “don’t holler at me.”

He grasped her hand with his two, and, immediately quiet, placed a close string of kisses along it.

“Mamma,” he said, kissing them again and again into the palm, “mamma—­mamma!”

“I know, son; it’s nerves.”

“They eat me, ma.  Feel—­I’m like ice.  I didn’t mean it; you know I didn’t mean it.”

“My baby,” she said, “my wonderful boy, it’s like I can never get used to the wonder of having you!  The greatest one of them all should be mine—­a plain woman’s like mine!”

He teased her, eager to conciliate and ride down his own state of quivering.

“Now, ma—­now—­now—­don’t forget Rimsky!”

“‘Rimsky!’ A man three times your age who was playing concerts before you was born!  Is that a comparison?  From your clippings-books I can show Rimsky who the world considers the greatest violinist.  Rimsky he rubs into me!”

“All right then, the press-clippings, but did Elsass, the greatest manager of them all, bring me a contract for thirty concerts at two thousand a concert?  Now I’ve got you!  Now!”

She would not meet his laughter.

“‘Elsass!’ Believe me, he’ll come to you yet.  My boy should worry if he makes fifty thousand a year more or less.  Rimsky should have that honour—­for so long as he can hold it.  But he won’t hold it long.  Believe me, I don’t rest easy in my bed till Elsass comes after you.  Not for so big a contract like Rimsky’s, but bigger—­not for thirty concerts but for fifty!”