‘Always.’ The man seated beside Ulli gave his elbow a nudge. ‘His favourite. If a boy can’t eat strawberry ice cream after finishing such a session, then when can he?’

‘Naturally,’ Ulli said. His neighbour was the boy wonder’s father, Moshe Menuhin.

‘When I first came to America, the first thing I did was to have a strawberry ice-cream soda. Now it’s his favourite. There’s a heritage for you!’ Moshe – sharp, lively, slightly pugnacious, Ulli thought, with a high-domed forehead and receding hairline – raised what was left of his glass of champagne.

The entourage, which Ulli observed against the glow of the brasserie’s wood panelling and stained-glass insets, consisted of the recording team: George Enescu – who’d conducted that day for Menuhin, his ex-pupil; an assortment of young girls vying for attention; and Yehudi’s parents, plus his two sisters, one of whom, apparently a fine pianist and inseparable from him, had draped herself over his right shoulder. They were all clinking and cheering for the pleasure of the handsome young star in their midst. One of the girls had grabbed a piece of tinsel from the restaurant’s Christmas decorations and placed it around Yehudi’s collar, so that it cast up minuscule points of light around his face.

Moshe paid for dinner for everyone. ‘Please, let Schott’s help,’ Ulli offered.

Menuhin senior paused in amazement before giving way to laughter that turned heads across the sizeable restaurant. ‘Don’t worry, Dr Schultheiss. You know what my boy earns per year? My friend, when this tour’s over, he’s going to take a sabbatical until his 21st birthday. And while he’s away, this is time in which he could have earned 2 million dollars! So it’s my pleasure that this dinner should be on us.’

Ulli made impressed noises. The generosity was admirable, yet he didn’t entirely approve of the freedom with which such quantities of money were openly revealed these days – a trend, of course, of the new world. Ulli, though only 33, was a man of the old one; he would have been happier, perhaps, in the 19th rather than the 20th century. He wasn’t sure, moreover, that it was sensible for any musician to earn as much as that; if everyone were to demand the same, the concert world would go bankrupt in no time. Think of Jelly, playing in those freezing cathedrals to help the unemployed, without taking one penny for herself!