He hurried forward to greet them, shaking Diana by both hands and then leading her up to the great French pianist, Madame Berthe Louvigny.
The latter was a tall, grave-looking woman, with a pair of the most lustrous brown eyes Diana had ever seen.

They seemed to glow with a kind of inward fire under the wide brow revealed beneath the sweep of her dark hair.
"So thees ees your wonder-pupil, Signor," she said, her smile radiating kindness and good-humour.

"Mademoiselle, I weesh you all the success that I know Signor Baroni hopes for you." She talked very rapidly, with a strong foreign accent, and her gesture was so expressive that one felt it was almost superfluous to add speech to the quick, controlled movement.

Hands, face, shoulders--she seemed to speak with her whole body, yet without conveying any impression of restlessness.

There was not a single meaningless movement; each added point to the rapid flow of speech, throwing it into vivid relief like the shading of a picture.
While she was still chatting to Diana, a slender man with bright hair tossed back over a finely shaped head came into the artistes' room, carrying in his hand a violin-case which he deposited on the table with as much care as though it were a baby.