"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."