"I like him! Nice fellow, but too slow! Why, if I were in his shoes I'd
have popped long ago."
She smiled with her lashes dewy.
There entered then, in a violet-scented little whirl, Miss Gina Berg,
rosy with the sting of a winter's night, and, as usual, swathed in the
high-napped furs.
"Gina!"
She was for greeting every one, a wafted kiss to Mrs. Kantor, and then,
arms wide, a great bunch of violets in one outstretched hand, her glance
straight, sure, and sparkling for Leon Kantor.
"Surprise--everybody--surprise!"
"Why, Gina--we read--we thought you were singing in Philadelphia
to-night!"
"So did I, Esther darling, until a little bird whispered to me that
Lieutenant Kantor was home on farewell leave."
He advanced to her down the great length of room, lowering his head over
her hand, his puttee-clad legs clicking together. "You mean, Miss
Gina--Gina--you didn't sing?"
"Of course I didn't! Hasn't every prima donna a larynx to hide behind?"
She lifted off her fur cap, spilling curls.
"Well, I--I'll be hanged!" said Lieutenant Kantor, his eyes lakes of her
reflected loveliness.
She let her hand linger in his. "Leon--you--really going? How--terrible!
How--how--wonderful!"
"How wonderful'--your coming!"
"I--You think it was not nice of me--to come?"
"I think it was the nicest thing that ever happened in the world."
"All the way here in the train I kept saying, 'Crazy--crazy--running to
tell Leon--Lieutenant--Kantor good-by--when you haven't even seen him
three times in three years--'"
"But each--each of those three times we--we've remembered, Gina."
"But that's how I feel toward all the boys, Leon--our fighting
boys--just like flying to them to kiss them each one good-by."
"Come over, Gina. You'll be a treat to our mother. I--Well, I'm hanged!
All the way from Philadelphia!"
There was even a sparkle to talk, then, and a letup of pressure. After a
while Sarah Kantor looked up at her son, tremulous, but smiling.
"Well, son, you going to play--for your old mother before--you go? It'll
be many a month--spring--maybe longer, before I hear my boy again
except on the discaphone."
He shot a quick glance to his sister. "Why, I--I don't know. I--I'd love
it, ma, if--if you think, Esther, I'd better."
"You don't need to be afraid of me, darlink. There's nothing can give me
the strength to bear--what's before me like--like my boy's music.
That's my life, his music."
"Why, yes; if mamma is sure she feels that way, play for us, Leon."
He was already at the instrument, where it lay, swathed, atop the grand
piano. "What'll it be, folks?"
"Something to make ma laugh, Leon--something light, something funny."
"'Humoresque,'" he said, with a quick glance for Miss Berg.
"'Humoresque,'" she said, smiling back at him.
He capered through, cutting and playful of bow, the melody of Dvorák's,
which is as ironic as a grinning mask.
Finished, he smiled at his parent, her face still untearful.
"How's that?"
She nodded. "It's like life, son, that piece. Crying to hide its
laughing and laughing to hide its crying."
"Play that new piece, Leon--the one you set to music. You know. The
words by that young boy in the war who wrote such grand poetry before he
was killed. The one that always makes poor Mannie laugh. Play it for
him, Leon."
Her plump little unlined face innocent of fault, Mrs. Isadore Kantor
ventured her request, her smile tired with tears.
"No, no--Rosa--not now! Ma wouldn't want that!"
"I do, son; I do! Even Mannie should have his share of good-by."
To Gina Berg: "They want me to play that little arrangement of mine from
Allan Seegar's poem. 'I Have a Rendezvous....'"
"It--it's beautiful, Leon. I was to have sung it on my program
to-night--only, I'm afraid you had better not--here--now--"
"Please, Leon! Nothing you play can ever make me as sad as it makes me
glad. Mannie should have, too, his good-by."
"All right, then, ma, if--if you're sure you want it. Will you sing it,
Gina?"