presumption.

Signor Baroni's eyes roamed inquiringly over the face and figure of the
girl before him--quite possibly querying as to whether or no she
possessed the requisite physique for a singer. Nevertheless, the great
master was by no means proof against the argument of a pretty face.
There was a story told of him that, on one occasion, a girl with an
exceptionally fine voice had been brought to him, some wealthy patroness
having promised to defray the expenses of her training if Baroni would
accept her as a pupil. Unfortunately, the girl was distinctly plain,
with a quite uninteresting plainness of the pasty, podgy description, and
after he had heard her sing, the _maestro_, first dismissing her from the
room, had turned to the lady who was prepared to stand sponsor for her,
and had said, with an inimitable shrug of his massive shoulders:--

"The voice--it is all right. But the girl--heavens, madame, she is of an
ugliness! And I cannot teach ugly people. She has the face of a
peeg--please take her away."

But there was little fear that a similar fate would befall Diana. Her
figure, though slight with the slenderness of immaturity, was built on
the right lines, and her young, eager face, in its frame of raven hair,
was as vivid as a flower--its clear pallor serving but to emphasise the
beauty of the straight, dark brows and of the scarlet mouth with its
ridiculously short upper-lip. Her eyes were of that peculiarly light
grey which, when accompanied, as hers were, by thick black lashes, gives
an almost startling impression each time the lids are lifted, an odd
suggestion of inner radiance that was vividly arresting.

An intense vitality, a curious shy charm, the sensitiveness inseparable