concert. His manager begged him to waive the clause relative to passes. Klopfer insisted that no free admissions be granted. There were exactly sixty-four parquet seats occupied at the second recital. Klopfer’s heart was broken. The critics noted a lack of brilliancy in his playing. After all, Klopfer could not do his best in a large, empty hall. He grew bitter. He decided that the American public had no taste. He returned to Europe long before the expiration of his contract. He has never returned to this country. In Europe, however, he is one of the greatest drawing cards among violinists.
“I sometimes wish that Klopfer had been with us. I think that I could have persuaded him to let us fill his early houses for him. He had the admiration of the critics and he would have won the public eventually had he adjusted himself to American ways. But that is the way of the concert business. Here was an artist, as great in his way as Kreisler or Heifetz, whose American visit is notorious among managers as a monumental failure.”
Maxwell came out of his reverie.
“That’s that, anyhow,” he remarked, crisply. “Now we might as well consider a date for your recital. I take it you’d like Aeolian Hall.”
“That would be lovely,” agreed Dorothy.
Maxwell consulted a note-book.
“I can give you the second Saturday afternoon in October,” he said. “That date was held for another recital which has been canceled. Saturday afternoons are particularly good for débuts.”
The Loamfords nodded.
“You sing under your own name?"
Dorothy looked puzzled. If she had had an impossible, unpronounceable name-
“Why, yes-
[113]
