Humoresque | Page 7

A
fitted-over-corsets black taffeta and a high comb in the graying hair had
done their best with her. Pride, too, had left its flush upon her cheeks,
like two round spots of fever.
"Leon, it's thirty minutes till your first number. Close that door. Do you
want to let your papa and his excitement in on you?"
The son of Sarah Kantor obeyed, leaning his short, rather narrow form
in silhouette against the closed door. In spite of slimly dark evening
clothes worked out by an astute manager to the last detail in boyish
effects, there was that about him which defied long-haired precedent.

Slimly and straightly he had shot up into an unmannered, a short, even
a bristly-haired young manhood, disqualifying by a close shave for the
older school of hirsute virtuosity.
But his nerves did not spare him. On concert nights they seemed to
emerge almost to the surface of him and shriek their exposure.
"Just feel my hands, ma. Like ice."
She dived down into her large silk what-not of a reticule.
"I've got your fleece-lined gloves here, son."
"No--no! For God's sake--not those things! No!"
He was back at the door again, opening it to a slit, peering through.
"They're bringing more seats on the stage. If they crowd me in I won't
go on. I can't play if I hear them breathe. Hi--out there--no more chairs!
Pa! Hancock--"
"Leon, Leon, ain't you ashamed to get so worked up? Close that door.
Have you got a manager who is paid just to see to your comfort? When
papa comes, I'll have him go out and tell Hancock you don't want chairs
so close to you. Leon, will you mind mamma and sit down?"
"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 play a
concert when you wouldn't be comfortable?"
His long, slim hands suddenly prehensile and cutting a streak of
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, lay a close
string of kisses along it.
"Mamma," he said, kissing 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 to 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 honor--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!"
"_Brava! Brava!_ There's