Then Baroni pointed to the song, lying open on the floor between them, and said explosively:-- "Pick that up." Diana regarded him coolly, her small face set like a flint.
"No." She fairly threw the negative at him, He stared at her--he was accustomed to more docile pupils--and the two girls who had remained in the room to listen to the lessons following their own huddled together with scared faces.

The _maestro_ in a royal rage was ever, in their opinion, to be regarded from much the same viewpoint as a thunderbolt, and that any one of his pupils should dare to defy him was unheard-of.

In the same situation as that in which Diana found herself, either of the two girls in question would have meekly picked up the music and, dissolving into tears, made the continuance of the lesson an impossibility, only to be bullied by the _maestro_ even more execrably next time.
"Pick that up," repeated Baroni stormily.
"I shall do nothing of the kind," retorted Diana promptly.

"You threw it there, and you can pick it up.

I'm going home." And, turning her back upon him, she marched towards the door.
A sudden twinkle showed itself in Baroni's eyes.