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Not to keep your public waiting would spoil the game.
    Finally, in wordless agreement, the trio filed out onto the stage, bowed, filed back. In row twenty-two Pamela Porterfield rose to her feet.
    "Bravo!" she shouted.
    No one else was standing.
    Embarrassed, she sat down again.
    "Diane, have you got any aspirin?"
    "Sure thing, honey."
    "You all right, Pammy?" Clayton asked.
    "Oh, I'm fine. I just have this crick in my neck from stretching to see over that man's head. Thanks." She rubbed her left shoulder. "You were lucky, Clayton. You didn't have anyone in front of you."
    Instead of answering, Clayton clapped. Diane put on her coat. Already most of the subscription holders were hurrying out, eager to be first in line at the coat check or the valet parking. Idiots, Pamela thought (swallowing the aspirin), the kind of people who unwrap hard candy during the slow movement, or applaud before the end, or talk. Why, once she and Paul had sat next to a man who'd actually brought along a transistor radio to a recital, so he could listen to the World Series. The management had had to be summoned.
    "So what'd you think?" Diane asked. In the narrow aisle she was already buttoned up, purse in hand.
    "I liked the Beethoven better than the Tchaikovsky," Clayton said.
    "Really? I liked the Tchaikovsky better than the Beethoven."
    "How about you, Pammy? Which one did you like better?"
    Pamela, still seated, said nothing, as the trio, wearing expressions of reluctance and indulgence, stepped back onto the stage. This time Kennington led. They carried instruments, music. Those people who happened to be in the aisles grabbed whatever empty seat was closest. Chatter and applause ceased utterly, as if a vacuum had sucked away sound.
    The Mosses, looking disappointed, sat down again.
    Almost offhandedly, Kennington struck the first chord of the Schubert. It is a piece that brings to mind the moment of departure at a train station; that makes the fingers stretch to touch a last time; that makes you think, yes, the life of sensation, and no other. Indeed, Kennington's playing of it transfixed Paul's attention to such a degree that at one point he nearly forgot to turn the page. But fortunately he caught himself, and from then on he made certain to keep his eyes on the score instead of the keyboard.
    The andante lasted a little more than eight minutes, after which the musicians got up, bowed again, and left the stage. Ritual demanded further curtain calls, further stomping for a second encore that was not forthcoming: with the exception of Izzy, who could have played all night, they were too tired.
    "That's it!" the stage manager shouted as the houselights went up. Roars of disappointment sounded from the upper balconies.
    People left.
    In a corner of the wings, meanwhile, Kennington was drinking water from a cooler: cup after cup, gulp after gulp.
    Very quietly Paul approached him.
    "Sir?" he asked, holding out his hand.
    "Yes?"
    "I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just want to say that you played splendidly tonight."
    "Thank you."
    "I'll never forget it, not for the rest of my life. Sorry about the watch, by the way."
    "Oh, that was no problem."
    "Also, I realize that I nearly missed one turn during the encore."
    "It was nothing. From my point of view you were perfect. Flawless, even."
    "I appreciate that, sir, even if it isn't true."
    "Please don't call me sir. I'm not that old. I'm not your grandfather."
    "But I didn't say it because I thought you were old. I said it because I think you're great."
    "Well, that's a little better, I suppose." Filling his cup again, Kennington looked at Paul, who with a kind of studied obduracy was refusing to meet his eye, fixing his attention instead on the men in overalls who were moving the piano off the stage.
    "So do you live here in San Francisco?" he asked after a moment.
    "In Menlo Park, actually. That's down the peninsula. But I was born in Boston." Paul smiled. "You're from Florida, aren't you?"
    "Yes, I