He laughed happily.
“Not for a moment. It seemed as if I had the confidence of a thousand devils!”
“That is more than I can say for myself. I had an awful attack of stage-fright. My knees rattled beneath me!”
“You do care, don’t you?” His voice was exultant.
“Very much more than you will ever guess, Alexis!”
“Darling!” He squeezed her hand ecstatically.
“When you play at the Philharmonic on Friday I’ll not be afraid at all.”
He looked at her tenderly. “Why should you be if I’m not, sweetheart? You mustn’t make yourself ill over me. You’ve heard me play the Brahm’s Concerto many times, and you know that it is mine, or rather that I am its!”
They laughed at his comical way of putting it.
“I intend to play it in Boston next week, too,” he continued. “How I loathe these trips that take me away from you! When the ocean separates us I shall be wild. But you will join me as soon as you can on the Continent? If you don’t want me to come to Florence we can meet in Venice, perhaps. I have set my heart on Venice. Think of us in a palazzo over the pole-shadowed waters. We will wind in and out of the tiny canals, in a gondola beneath a golden moon, and I will play to you.”