Seen amidst so many strange faces, the familiarity of Olga Lermontof's clever but rather forbidding visage bred a certain new sense of comradeship, and Diana made several tentative efforts to draw her into conversation. The results were meagre, however, the Russian confining herself to monosyllabic answers until some one--one of the musical students--chanced to mention that she had recently been to the Premier Theatre to see Adrienne de Gervais in a new play, "The Grey Gown," which had just been produced there.

It was then that Miss Lermontof apparently awoke to the fact that the English language contains further possibilities than a bare "yes" or "no."

"I consider Adrienne de Gervais a most overrated actress," she remarked succinctly.

A chorus of disagreement greeted this announcement.

"Why, only think how quickly she's got on," argued Miss Jones. "No one three years ago--and to-day Max Errington writes all his plays round her."

"Precisely. And it's easy enough to 'create a part' successfully if that part has been previously written specially to suit you," retorted Miss Lermontof unmoved.

The discussion of Adrienne de Gervais' merits, or demerits, threatened to develop into a violent disagreement, and Diana was struck by a certain personal acrimony that seemed to flavour Miss Lermontof's criticism of the popular actress. Finally, with the idea of averting a quarrel between the disputants, she mentioned that the actress, accompanied by her chaperon, had been staying in the neighbourhood of her own home.

"Mr. Errington was with them also," she added.

"He usually is," commented Miss Lermontof disagreeably.

"He's a remarkably fine pianist," said Diana. "Do you know him personally at all?"

"I've met him," replied Olga. Her green eyes narrowed suddenly, and she regarded Diana with a rather curious expression on her face.

"Is he a professional pianist?" pursued Diana. She was conscious of an intense curiosity concerning Errington, quite apart from the personal episodes which had linked them together. The man of mystery invariably exerts a peculiar fascination over the feminine mind. Hence the unmerited popularity not infrequently enjoyed by the dark, saturnine, brooding individual whose conversation savours of the tensely monosyllabic.

Olga Lermontof paused a moment before replying to Diana's query. The she said briefly:--

"No. He's a dramatist. I shouldn't allow myself to become too interested in him if I were you."

She smiled a trifle grimly at Diana's sudden flush, and her manner indicated that, as far as she was concerned, the subject was closed.

Diana felt an inward conviction that Miss Lermontof knew much more concerning Max Errington than she chose to admit, and when she fell asleep that night it was to dream that she and Errington were trying to find each other through the gloom of a thick fog, whilst all the time the dark-browed, sinister face of Olga Lermontof kept appearing and disappearing between them, smiling tauntingly at their efforts.

CHAPTER IX

A CONTEST OF WILLS

Diana was sitting in Baroni's music-room, waiting, with more or less patience, for a singing lesson. The old _maestro_ was in an unmistakable ill-humour this morning, and he had detained the pupil whose lesson preceded her own far beyond the allotted time, storming at the unfortunate young man until Diana marvelled that the latter had sufficient nerve to continue singing at all.

In a whirl of fury Baroni informed him that he was exactly suited to be a third-rate music-hall artiste--the young man, be it said, was making a special study of oratorio--and that it was profanation, for any one with so incalculably little idea of the very first principles of art to attempt to interpret the works of the great masters, together with much more of a like explosive character. Finally, he dismissed him abruptly and turned to Diana.

"Ah--Mees Quentin." He softened a little. He had a great affection for this promising pupil of his, and welcomed her with a smile. "I am seek of that young man with his voice of an archangel and his brains of a feesh! . . . So! You haf come back from your visit to the country?

And how goes it with the voice?"

"I expect I'm a bit rusty after my holiday," she replied diplomatically, fondly hoping to pave the way for more lenient treatment than had been accorded to the luckless student of oratorio.

Unfortunately, however, it chanced to be one of those sharply chilly days to which May occasionally treats us. Baroni frankly detested cold weather--it upset both his nerves and his temper--and Diana speedily realised that no excuses would avail to smooth her path on this occasion.

"Scales," commanded Baroni, and struck a chord.

She began to sing obediently, but at the end of the third scale he stopped her.

"Bah! It sounds like an elephant coming downstairs! Be-r-r-rump . . .

be-r-r-rump . . . be-r-r-rump . . . br-r-rum! Do not, please, sing as an elephant walks."

Diana coloured and tried again, but without marked success. She was genuinely out of practice, and the nervousness with which Baroni's obvious ill-humour inspired her did not mend matters.

"But what haf you been doing during the holidays?" exclaimed the _maestro_ at last, his odd, husky voice fierce with annoyance. "There is no ease---no flexibility. You are as stiff as a rusty hinge. Ach!

But you will haf to work--not play any more."

He frowned portentously, then with a swift change to a more reasonable mood, he continued:--

"Let us haf some songs--Saint-Saens' _Amour, viens aider_. Perhaps that will wake you up, _hein_?"

Instead, it carried Diana swiftly back to the Rectory at Crailing, to the evening when she had sung this very song to Max Errington, with the unhappy Joan stumbling through the accompaniment. She began to sing, her mind occupied with quite other matters than Delilah's pa.s.sion of vengeance, and her face expressive of nothing more stirring than a gentle reminiscence. Baroni stopped abruptly and placed a big mirror in front of her.

"Please to look at your face, Mees Quentin," he said scathingly. "It is as wooden as your singing."

He was a confirmed advocate of the importance of facial expression in a singer, and Diana's vague, abstracted look was rapidly raising his ire.

Recalled by the biting scorn in his tones, she made a gallant effort to throw herself more effectually into the song, but the memory of Errington's grave, intent face, as he had sat listening to her that night, kept coming betwixt her and the meaning of the music--and the result was even more unpromising than before.

In another moment Baroni was on his feet, literally dancing with rage.

"But do you then call yourself an _artiste_?" he broke out furiously.

"Why has the good G.o.d given you eyes and a mouth? That they may express nothing--nothing at all? Bah! You haf the face of a gootta-per-r-rcha doll!"

And s.n.a.t.c.hing up the music from the piano in an uncontrollable burst of fury, he flung it straight at her, and the two of them stood glaring at each other for a few moments in silence. 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. With unaccustomed celerity he pranced after her.

"Come back, little Pepper-pot, come back, then, and we will continue the lesson."

Diana turned and stood hesitating.

"Who's going to pick up that music?" she demanded unflinchingly.