ately, however, it chanced to be one of those sharply chilly
days to which May occasionally treats us. Baroni frankly detested cold
weather--it upset both his nerves and his temper--and Diana speedily
realised that no excuses would avail to smooth her path on this
occasion.

"Scales," commanded Baroni, and struck a chord.

She began to sing obediently, but at the end of the third scale he
stopped her.

"Bah! It sounds like an elephant coming downstairs! Be-r-r-rump . . .
be-r-r-rump . . . be-r-r-rump . . . br-r-rum! Do not, please, sing as
an elephant walks."

Diana coloured and tried again, but without marked success. She was
genuinely out of practice, and the nervousness with which Baroni's
obvious ill-humour inspired her did not mend matters.

"But what haf you been doing during the holidays?" exclaimed the
_maestro_ at last, his odd, husky voice fierce with annoyance. "There
is no ease---no flexibility. You are as stiff as a rusty hinge. Ach!
But you will haf to work--not play any more."

He frowned portentously, then with a swift change to a more reasonable
mood, he continued:--

"Let us haf some songs--Saint-Saens' _Amour, viens aider_. Perhaps
that will wake you up, _hein_?"

Instead, it carried Diana swiftly back to the Rectory at Crailing, to
the evening when she had sung this very song to Max Errington, with the
unhappy Joan stumbling through the accompaniment. She began to sing,
her mind occupied with quite other matters than Delilah's passion of
vengeance, and her face expressive of nothing more stirring than a
gentle reminiscence. Baroni stopped abruptly and placed a big mirror
in front of her.

"Please to look at your face, Mees Quentin," he said scathingly. "It
is as wooden as your singing."

He was a confirmed advocate of the importance of facial expression in a
singer, and Diana's vague, abstracted look was rapidly raising his ire.
Recalled by the biting scorn in his tones, she made a gallant effort to
throw herself more effectually into the song, but the memory of
Errington's grave, intent face, as he had sat listening to her that
night, kept coming betwixt her and the meaning of the music--and the
result was even more unpromising than before.

In another moment Baroni was on his feet, literally dancing with rage.

"But do you then call yourself an _artiste_?" he broke out furiously.
"Why has the good God given you eyes and a mouth? That they may
express nothing--nothing at