"How do you do? Will you sit down, please," he said, speaking with a
strong, foreign accent, and then apparently forgot all about her.

"Now"--he turned to the young man whose lesson her entry had
interrupted--"we will haf this through once more. Bee-gin, please: '_In
all humility I worship thee_.'"

Obediently the young man opened his mouth, and in a magnificent baritone
voice declaimed that reverently, and from a great way off, he ventured to
worship at his beloved's shrine, while Diana listened spell-bound.

If this were the only sort of voice Baroni condescended to train, what
chance had she? And the young man's singing seemed so finished, the
fervour of his passion was so vehemently rendered, that she humbly
wondered that there still remained anything for him to learn. It was
almost like listening to a professional.

Quite suddenly Baroni dropped his hands from the piano and surveyed the
singer with such an eloquent mixture of disgust and bitter contempt in
his extraordinarily expressive eyes that Diana positively jumped.

"Ach! So that is your idea of a humble suitor, is it?" he said, and
though he never raised his voice above the rather husky, whispering tones
that seemed habitual to him, it cut like a lash. Later, Diana was to
learn that Baroni's most scathing criticisms and most furious reproofs
were always delivered in a low, half-whispering tone that fairly seared
the victim. "That is your idea, then--to shout, and yell, and bellow
your love like a caged bull? When will you learn that music is not
noise, and that love--love"--and the odd, husky voice thrilled suddenly
to a note as soft and tender as the cooing of a wood-pigeon--"can be