"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.