eternally grateful now could she only have passed the low standard
demanded by the possession of even a merely "pretty" voice.

"So this is the voice you bring me to cultivate?" continued the
_maestro_. "This that sounds like the rumblings of a subterranean
earthquake? Boom! boo-o-om! Like that, _nicht wahr_?"

Diana crimsoned, and, feeling her knees giving way beneath her, sank into
the nearest chair, while Baroni continued to stare at her.

"Then--then you cannot take me as a pupil?" she said faintly.

Apparently he did not hear her, for he asked abruptly:--

"Are you prepared to give up everything--everything in the world for art?
She is no easy task-mistress, remember! She will want a great deal of
your time, and she will rob you of your pleasures, and for her sake you
will haf to take care of your body--to guard your physical health--as
though it were the most precious thing on earth. To become a great
singer, a great artiste, means a life of self-denial. Are you prepared
for this?"

"But--but--" stammered Diana in astonishment. "If my voice is not even
pretty--if it is no good--"

"_No good_?" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet with a rapidity of
movement little short of marvellous in a man of his size and bulk.
"_Gran Dio_! No good, did you say? But, my child, you haf a voice of
gold--pure gold. In three years of my training it will become the voice
of the century. Tchut! No good!"