She felt as if she had never been away, as though the Diana Quentin who had been living in London and studying singing under the greatest master of the day were some one quite apart from the girl who had passed so many quiet, happy years at Crailing Rectory.
The new and unaccustomed student's life, the two golden visits which she had paid to Italy, the introduction into a milieu of clever, gifted people all struggling to make the most of their talents, had been such an immense change from the placid, humdrum existence which had preceded it, that it still held for her an almost dreamlike charm of novelty, and this was intensified at the present moment by her return to Crailing to find everything going on just in the same old way, precisely as though there had been no break at all.
As though to convince herself that the student life in London was a substantial reality, and not a mere figment of the imagination, she hummed a few bars of a song, and as she listened to the deep, rich notes of her voice, poised with that sureness which only comes of first-class training, she smiled a little, reflecting that if nothing else had changed, here at least was a palpable outcome of that dreamlike year.
"Bravo!" The Rector's cheery tones broke in upon her thoughts as he came out from a neighbouring gateway and swung himself up into the trap beside her.

"Di, I've got to hear that voice before long.

What does Signor Baroni say about it ?" "Oh, I think he's quite pleased," she answered, whipping up the fat pony, who responded reluctantly.

"But he's a fearful martinet.

He nearly frightens me to death when he gets into one of his royal Italian rages--though he's always particularly sweet afterwards! Pobs, I wonder who my man in the train was ?" she added inconsequently.
The Rector looked at her narrowly.