"Darling, are you OK?" I asked, rushing up to her. Mr. Rossi wisely removed his roaming hand and stood back a few steps.
"I think I just sprained my ankle," she replied, but that was not the uppermost thing on her mind. "Oh, Daddy—look at my bow!"
"Hey, we can get a new one," I told her, lifting it up. "I saw the way you saved your viola," I said, trying to sound cheerful. "It was a great maneuver!"
She didn't smile. "But... how am I going to _play_?"
I turned to Mr. Rossi. "Look, I'll take her to see a doctor, and..."
"NO!" Jenny screamed. "I have to go on! There are people waiting out there!"
"Honey," I replied, "you have to see a doctor right away."
"Daddy—people paid _money_ to see me play tonight..." She started crying again. "If I don't go on I'll be humiliated forever!"
Under his breath, Rossi was making ecstatic noises in a thick, and quite ineffable, European accent. He sounded like a bad Italian wine with a French label—bottled in Austria and shipped via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Alaska where it was smuggled south on a Canadian ship. "She eez a true artiste..."
Try as I might, I could not convince her to come away with me. She was stubborn in that way—more stubborn than her mother had ever been. Mr. Rossi was no help at all in the matter either: he seemed to agree with her!