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 all?
Bah! You haf the face of a gootta-per-r-rcha doll!" And snatching up the music from the piano in an uncontrollable burst of fury, he flung it straight at her, and the two of them stood glaring at each other for a few moments in silence.