"What are you laughing at, Winifred?" demanded Tom, angrily. "Is there anything funny about all this? It seems, if I can believe what you say, that I made a kind of pianola of myself without knowing it. Is that a joke? I tell you, Winifred, it's paresis or something worse. Maybe I'll rob a bank next. And when I'm bailed out, I suppose I'll find you on a broad grin."
I was too near the verge of nervous collapse to repress the feeling of unreasonable annoyance that came over me at Tom's words. "I think you're very unjust, Tom," I exclaimed, with great lack of judgment.
"Unjust!" he echoed, petulantly. "Unjust to whom--to what?"
"You're unjust to Chopin," I answered, hotly, realizing that I was talking in a distinctly childish way. "Playing one of his masterpieces is not quite like robbing a bank."
"Why not," he snapped, "if I don't know how to play it? I certainly robbed those fool women of their flowers, didn't I? They pelted me with bouquets as if I were a boy wonder or a long-haired bang-the-keys, and I don't know the soft pedal from the key of E. I wouldn't do Chopin an injustice. He's dead, isn't he? But you mustn't do me an injustice, Winifred. I can't stand anything more to-night."
My heart seemed to come into my throat with a sob, and I drew my chair close to Tom's and took his cold hand in mine. "I'm sorry, Tom. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, but I've been sorely tried, you must admit. I'm not quite myself, I fear."
Tom turned quickly and gazed squarely into my eyes. "Don't you worry, Winifred. You're yourself, all right. But who the dickens am I? If I'm Tom Remsen, I can't play Chopin. And you say I did play Chopin. I don't say I didn't. But how did I do it? Tom Remsen couldn't do it. Look at my hands, Winifred. Could my fingers knock a pianissimo out of a minor chord?--if that's what that fellow Chopin does. I tell you, it's queer, and I don't like it."
A well defined shudder shook Tom's heavy frame, and his hand, as it rested in mine, trembled perceptibly. His voice had sunk to a whisper as he asked: "Do you think it possible, Winifred, I was hypnotized, Winifred? I never took any stock in hypnotism, but there may be something in it. That Signor Turino has got a queer eye."
"I'm sure I don't know what to think, Tom," I admitted, reluctantly. By abandoning the theory that Tom had deceived me for a dozen years I was plunged into a tempestuous sea of mystery and conjecture. "But come, my dear boy, you are fagged out. We'll talk it over in the morning. Perhaps our minds will be clearer after a few hours' sleep."
"I couldn't sleep now," he returned nervously, glancing at his watch. "Don't go yet, Winifred. It's only two o'clock."