I had not intended to hurt Tom's feelings, but my words had displayed a plentiful lack of tact. And the worst of it was that Mrs. Jack seemed to be in a diabolical mood, for she at once jumped at the chance to make mischief.
"I have heard of your fondness for duets, Tom," she remarked, and I was reminded of the soft purring of a cat preparing to pounce on a helpless mouse. "What a delight it must be to Signorina Molatti to find an interpreter of Chopin worthy of her fiddle! You find her a very interesting personality, do you not?"
Tom stopped short--we were slowly making our exit from the library--and gazed at Mrs. Jack with a puzzled expression in his eyes. "Signorina Molatti?" he queried, musingly. "What do I think of her? I really don't know. I never considered the question before. She's merely a part of the music--not an individual, don't you see?" Suddenly his face changed, and he put his hand to his brow as if a sharp pain had tormented him. "Wait a moment! Don't go!" he implored us, in a labored, unnatural voice. "What does it all mean? Tell me! What am I doing? I can't play Chopin! I can't play anything! Have I been hypnotized? I tell you, Winifred--Mrs. Jack--'tis all a mistake, a mystery, an uncanny, hideous bedevilment. It's demoniac possession--or something of that kind. And what'll the Chopin Society think if I make a horrible flunk? At this moment, I don't feel as if I could play a note. Come into the music-room!" he ended, a touch of wildness in his voice and manner.
Mrs. Jack and I followed him, silently. There was in Tom's way of hurrying across the drawing-room a mingling of eagerness and dread that was wholly uncharacteristic of the man. As he hastened feverishly toward the piano, a hectic flush on his cheeks and his eyes aglow, he reminded me of a youth I had seen at Monte Carlo staking his whole fortune on a turn of the roulette wheel.
For a time, Tom sat at the instrument, his head bowed low and his hands hanging listlessly at his side. Mrs. Jack's arm was round my waist, and I could hear her deep, hurried breathing and feel the nervous tremor of her slender, well-knit form. It was indeed a most trying crisis that could disturb the poise of the athletic woman beside me.
"He doesn't connect," she whispered to me, presently. "I wish Dr. Woodruff were here."
But Mrs. Jack had spoken prematurely. Suddenly Tom's hands were raised and he struck the opening chords of Chopin's Scherzo in B minor, Opus 20. The fury of the following measures he rendered with stunning effect. Then the vigor of the rushing quaver figure lessened gradually, and, at the repeat, Tom sprang erect and turned toward us, an expression of weird ecstasy on his face.
"It's all right, girls!" he cried, with a boyish lack of dignity. "Come on! We're late, as it is. I'll show those Chopin people something they'll never forget! Come on!"
"He's fit!" whispered Mrs. Jack to me. "It wasn't much of a preliminary canter--but he's in the running fast enough!"
CHAPTER VIII.