The audience was shaken by the tender, sorrowful emotion of the song, its big, sentimental British heart throbbing to the haunting quality of the most beautiful voice in Europe.
Diana herself had tears in her eyes.

She was experiencing for the first time the passionate exultation born of the knowledge that she could sway the hearts of a multitude by the sheer beauty of her singing--an abiding recompense bestowed for all the sacrifices which art demands from those who learn her secrets.
Her fingers, gripping with unconscious intensity the flowers she held, detached a white rose from the sheaf, and it had barely time to reach the floor before a young man from the audience, eager-eyed, his face pale with excitement, sprang forward and snatched it up from beneath her feet.
In an instant there was an uproar.

Men and women lost their heads and clambered up on to the platform, pressing round the singer, besieging her for a spray of leaves or a flower from the sheaf she carried.

Some even tried to secure a bit of the gold embroidery from off her gown by way of memento.
"Oh, please.

.