"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.
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