The Splendid Folly Part 16

"Why, I will, thou most obstinate child"--suiting the action to the word. "Because it is true that professors should not throw music at their pupils, no matter"--maliciously--"how stupid nor how dull they may be at their lesson."

Diana flushed, immediately repentant.

"I'm sorry," she acknowledged frankly. "I was being abominably inattentive; I was thinking of something else."

The little scene was characteristic of her--unbendingly determined and obstinate when she thought she was wronged and unjustly treated, impulsively ready to ask pardon when she saw herself at fault.

Baroni patted her hand affectionately.

"See, my dear, I am a cross-grained, ugly old man, am I not?" he said placidly.

"Yes, you are," agreed Diana, to the awed amazement of the other two pupils, at the same time bestowing a radiant smile upon him.

Baroni beamed back at her benevolently.

"So! Thus we agree--we are at one, as master and pupil should be. Is it not so?"

Diana nodded, amus.e.m.e.nt in her eyes.

"Then, being agreed, we can continue our lesson. Imagine yourself, please, to be Delilah, brooding on your vengeance, gloating over what you are about to accomplish. Can you not picture her to yourself--beautiful, sinister, like a snake that winds itself about the body"--his voice fell to a penetrating whisper--"and, in her heart, dreaming of the triumph that shall bring Samson at last a captive to destruction?"

Something in the tense excitement of his whispering tones struck an answering chord within Diana, and oblivious for the moment of all else except Delilah's pa.s.sionate thirst for vengeance, she sang with her whole soul, so that when she ceased, Baroni, in a sudden access of artistic fervour, leapt from his seat and embraced her rapturously.

"Well done! That is, true art--art and intelligence allied to the voice of gold which the good G.o.d has given you."

Absorbed in the music, neither master nor pupil had observed that during the course of the song the door had been softly unlatched from outside and held ajar, and now, just as Diana was somewhat blushingly extricating herself from Baroni's fervent clasp, it was thrown open and the unseen listener came into the room.

Baroni whirled round and advanced with outstretched hands, his face wreathed in smiles.

"_A la bonne heure_! You haf come just at a good moment, Mees de Gervais, to hear this pupil of mine who will some day be one of the world's great singers."

Adrienne de Gervais shook hands.

"I've been listening, Baroni. She has a marvellous voice.

But"--looking at Diana pleasantly--"we are neighbours, surely? I have seen you in Crailing--where we have just taken a house called Red Gables."

"Yes, I live at Crailing," replied Diana, a little shyly.

"And I saw you, there one day--you were sitting in a pony-trap, waiting outside a cottage, and singing to yourself. I noticed the quality of her voice then," added Miss de Gervais, turning to the _maestro_.

"Yes," said Baroni, with placid content. "It is superb."

Adrienne turned back to Diana with a delightful smile.

"Since we are neighbours in the country, Miss Quentin, we ought to be friends in town. Won't you come and see me one day?"

Diana flushed. She was undoubtedly attracted by the actress's charming personality, but beyond this lay the knowledge that it was more than likely that at her house she might again encounter Errington. And though Diana told herself that he was nothing to her--in fact, that she disliked him rather than otherwise--the chance of meeting him once more was not to be foregone--if only for the opportunity it would give her of showing him how much she disliked him!

"I should like to come very much," she answered.

"Then come and have tea with me to-morrow--no, to-morrow I'm engaged.

Shall we say Thursday?"

Diana acquiesced, and Miss de Gervais turned to Baroni with a rather mischievous smile, saying something in a foreign tongue which Diana took to be Russian. Baroni replied in the same language, frowningly, and although she could not understand the tenor of his answer, Diana was positive that she caught her own name and that of Max Errington uttered in conjunction with each other.

It struck her as an odd coincidence that Baroni should be acquainted both with Miss de Gervais and with Errington, and at her next lesson she ventured to comment on the former's visit. Baroni's answer, however, furnished a perfectly simple explanation of it.

"Mees de Gervais? Oh, yes, she sings a song in her new play, 'The Grey Gown,' and I haf always coached her in her songs. She has a pree-ty voice--nothing beeg, but quite pree-ty."

Diana set forth on her visit to Adrienne with a certain amount of trepidation. Much as she longed to see Max Errington again, she felt that the first meeting after that last episode of their acquaintance might well partake of the somewhat doubtful pleasure of skating on thin ice.

It was therefore not without a feeling of relief that she found the actress and her chaperon the only occupants of the former's pretty drawing-room. They both welcomed her cordially.

"I have heard so much about you," said Mrs. Adams, pleasantly, "that I've been longing to meet you, Miss Quentin. Adrienne calls you the 'girl with the golden voice,' and I'm hoping to have the pleasure of hearing you sing."

Diana was getting used to having her voice referred to as something rather wonderful; it no longer embarra.s.sed her, so she murmured an appropriate answer and the conversation then drifted naturally to Crailing and to the lucky chance which had brought Errington past Culver Point the day Diana was marooned there, and Diana explained that the Rector and his daughter had intended calling upon the occupants of Red Gables, but had been prevented by their sudden departure.

Adrienne laughed.

"Yes, I expect every one thought we were quite mad to run away like that so soon after our arrival! It was a sudden idea of Mr.

Errington's. He declared he was not satisfied about something in the staging of 'The Grey Gown,' and of course we must needs all rush up to town to see about it. There wasn't the least necessity, as it turned out, but when Max takes an idea into his head there's no stopping him."

"No," added Mrs. Adams. "And the sheer cruelty of bustling an elderly person like me from one end of England to the other just to suit his whims doesn't seem to move him in the slightest."

She was smiling broadly as she spoke, and, it was evident to Diana that to both these women Max Errington's word was law--a law they obeyed, however, with the utmost cheerfulness.

"But, of course, we are coming back again," pursued Miss de Gervais.

"I think Crailing is a delightful little place, and I am going to regard Red Gables as a haven of refuge from the storms of professional life. So I hope"--smilingly--"that the Rectory will call on Red Gables when next we are 'in residence.'"

The time pa.s.sed quickly, and when tea was disposed of Adrienne looked out from amongst her songs one or two which were known to Diana, and Mrs. Adams was given the opportunity of hearing the "golden voice."

And then, just as Diana was preparing to leave, a maid threw open a door and announced:--

"Mr. Errington."

Diana felt her heart contract suddenly, and the sound of his voice, as he greeted Adrienne and Mrs. Adams, sent a thrill through every nerve in her body.

"You mustn't go now." She was vaguely conscious that Adrienne was speaking to her. "Max, here is Miss Quentin, whom you gallantly rescued from Culver Point."

The actress was dimpling and smiling, a spice of mischief in her soft blue eyes. She and Mrs. Adams had not omitted to chaff Errington about his involuntary knight-errantry, and the former had even laughingly declared it her firm belief that his journey to town the next day partook more of the nature of flight than anything else. To all of which Errington had submitted composedly, declining to add anything further to his bare statement of the incident of Culver Point--mention of which had been entailed by his unexpected absence from Red Gables that evening.

He gave a scarcely perceptible start of surprise as his eyes fell upon Diana, but he betrayed no pleasure at seeing her again. His face showed nothing beyond the polite, impersonal interest which any stranger might exhibit.

"I have just missed the pleasure of hearing you sing, I'm afraid," he said, shaking hands. "Have you been back in town long, Miss Quentin?"

"No, only a few days," she answered. "I had my first lesson with Signor Baroni the other day, and it was then that I met Miss de Gervais."

"At Baroni's?" Diana intercepted a swift glance pa.s.s between him and Adrienne.