He gazed at me, defiantly. "No," he said, gloomily, "I had been playing Chopin with Signorina Moletti."
By an effort of will, I restrained the words that rushed to my lips, and asked, quietly: "And which of his works had you been playing?"
"I don't know," he answered, wearily. "I think the signorina said our last rendition was No. 1 of Opus 40, whatever that may mean."
Tom glanced at me sheepishly, for all the world like a mischievous schoolboy who has been forced to make a confession. My mind was hard at work trying to recall the details of my recent researches into the life of Chopin. To refresh my memory, I opened a book that lay among other Lives of "the master" on the library-table.
"'No. 1 of Opus 40,'" I presently found myself reading aloud, "'is in A major, and is throughout an intensely martial composition. There is a spirit of victory and conquest about it. The most remarkable circumstances attached to it seems to lie in the fact that it is supposed to have been written during Chopin's sojourn at the Carthusian monastery on the island of Mallorca with George Sand.'"
Bitterly did I regret my indiscreet quotation. Tom had turned white and there had come into his eyes an appealing, despairing expression that reminded me of a deer I had once seen brought to bay in the Adirondack forest.
"Mrs. Van Corlear," announced the butler at the door of the library, and Mrs. Jack, who had the run of the house, came toward us gaily.
"And how is our boy-wonder this evening?" she cried, laughingly. "I'm backing Tom Remsen for the great Chopin handicap to-night. Are you quite fit, Tom? Do I get a run for my money?"
How easy it is for our most intimate friends to take our troubles lightly! Although I realized that underlying Mrs. Jack's levity was a kindly motive--a desire to carry off an awkward situation with the least possible friction--I could not help feeling annoyed at her flippant words. Grateful as I was to her for her loyal interest in my peculiar affliction, it was unpleasant to feel that Mrs. Jack was treating as a light comedy what seemed to me to involve all the elements of a tragedy. There was nothing farcical, surely, in Tom's appearance as he stood there, pale, silent, smiling perfunctorily at our guest, every inch a modern gentleman, but strangely like the tagonist of some classic drama, the rebellious but impotent plaything of vindictive gods.
"Come, let us go," I cried, nervously, anxious to put an end to a most uncomfortable situation. "Do you really feel up to it, Tom? There is still time to back out of it, you know. A solo before a crowd is much more trying than a duet in private."