"Heart's dearest, have you realised that it will be very hard sometimes? You will ask me to explain things--and I shan't be able to.

Is your trust big enough--great enough for this?"

Diana raised her head from his shoulder.

"I love you," she answered steadily.

"Do you forget the shadow? It is there still, d.o.g.g.i.ng my steps. Not even your love can alter that."

For a moment Diana rose to the heights of her womanhood.

"If there must be a shadow," she said, "we will walk in it together."

"But--don't you see?--I shall know what it is. To you it will always be something unknown, hidden, mysterious. Child! Child! I wonder if I am right to let you join your life to mine!"

But Diana only repeated:--

"I love you."

And at last he flung all thoughts of warning and doubt aside, and secure in that reiterated "I love you!" yielded to the unutterable joy of the moment.

CHAPTER XVI

BARONI'S OPINION OF MATRIMONY

"_Per Dio_! What is this you tell me? That you are to be married? . . . My dear Mees Quentin, please put all such thoughts of foolishness out of your mind. You are consecrated to art. The young man must find another bride."

It was thus that Carlo Baroni received the news of Diana's engagement--at first with unmitigated horror, then sweeping it aside as though it were a matter of no consequence whatever.

Diana laughed, dimpling with amus.e.m.e.nt at the _maestro's_ indignation.

Now that she had given her faith, refusing to allow anything to stand between her and Max, she was so supremely happy that she felt she could afford to laugh at such relatively small obstacles as would be raised by her old singing-master.

"I'm afraid the 'young man' wouldn't agree to that," she returned gaily. "He would say you must find another pupil."

Baroni surveyed her with anxiety.

"You are not serious?" he queried at last.

"Indeed I am. I'm actually engaged--now, at this moment--and we propose to get married before Christmas."

"But it is impossible! _Giusto Cielo_! But impossible!" reiterated the old man. "Mees Quentin, you cannot haf understood. Perhaps, in my anxiety that you should strain every nerve to improve, I haf not praised you enough--and so you haf not understood. Leesten, then. You haf a voice than which there is not one so good in the whole of Europe.

It is superb--marvellous--the voice of the century. With that voice you will haf the whole world at your feet; before long you will command almost fabulous fees, and more, far more than this, you can interpret the music of the great masters as they themselves would wish to hear it. Me, Baroni, I know it. And you would fling such possibilities, such a career, aside for mere matrimony! It is nonsense, I tell you, sheer nonsense!"

He paused for breath, and Diana laid her hand deprecatingly on his arm.

"Dear _Maestro_," she said, "it's good of you to tell me all this, and--and you mustn't think for one moment that I ever forget all you've done for me. It's you who've made my voice what it is. But there isn't the least reason why I should give up singing because I'm going to be married. I don't intend to, I a.s.sure you."

"I haf no doubt you mean well. But I haf heard other young singers say the same thing, and then the husband--the so English husband!--he objects to his wife's appearing in public, and _presto_! . . . Away goes the career! No singer should marry until she is well established in her profession. You are young. Marry in ten years' time and you shall haf my blessing."

"I shall want your blessing sooner than that," laughed Diana. "But I'm not marrying a 'so English husband'! He's only partly English, and he's quite willing for me to go on singing."

Baroni regarded her seriously.

"Is that so? Good! Then I will talk to the young man, so that he may realise that he is not marrying just Mees Diana Quentin, but a voice--a heaven-bestowed voice. What is his name?"

"You know him," she answered smilingly. "It's Max Errington."

She was utterly unprepared for the effect of her words. Baroni's face darkened like a stormy sky, and his eyes literally blazed at her from beneath their penthouse of s.h.a.ggy brow.

"Max Errington! _Donnerwetter_! But that is the worst of all!"

Diana stared, at him in mute amazement, and, despite herself, her heart sank with a sudden desperate apprehension. What did it mean? Why should the mere mention of Max's name have roused the old _maestro_ to such a fever of indignation?

Presently Baroni turned to her again, speaking more composedly, although little sparks of anger still flickered in his eyes ready to leap into flame at the slightest provocation.

"I haf met Mr. Errington. He is a charming man. But if you marry him, my dear Mees Quentin--good-bye to your career as a world-artiste, good-bye to the most marvellous voice that the good G.o.d has ever let me hear."

"I don't see why. Max thoroughly understands professional life."

"Nevertheless, believe me, there will--there _must_ come a time when Max Errington's wife will not be able to appear before the world as a public singer. I who speak, I know."

Diana flashed round upon him suddenly.

"_You_--you know his secret?"

"I know it."

So, then, the secret which must be hidden from his wife was yet known to Carlo Baroni! Diana felt her former resentment surge up anew within her. It was unfair--shamefully unfair for Max to treat her in this way! It was making a mockery of their love.

Baroni's keen old eyes read the conflict of emotions in her face, and he laid his finger unerringly upon the sore spot. His one idea was to prevent Diana from marrying, to guard her--as he mentally phrased it--for the art he loved so well, and he was prepared to stick at nothing that might aid his cause.

"So he has not told you?" he said slowly. "Do you not think it strange of him?"

Diana's breast rose and fell tumultuously. Baroni was turning the knife in the wound with a vengeance.

"_Maestro_, tell me,"--her voice came unevenly--"tell me. Is it"--she turned her head away--"is it a . . . shameful . . . secret?"

Inwardly she loathed herself for asking such a thing, but the words seemed dragged from her without her own volition.

Baroni hesitated. All his hopes and ambitions centred round Diana and her marvellous voice. He had given of his best to train it to its present perfection, and now he saw the fruit of his labour about to be s.n.a.t.c.hed from him. It was more than human nature could endure.

Errington meant nothing to him, Diana and her voice everything; and he was prepared to sacrifice no matter whom to secure her career as an artiste. By implication he sacrificed Errington.

"It is not possible for me to say more. But be advised, my dear pupil.

Out of my great love for you I say it--_let Max Errington go his way_."

And with those words--sinister, warning--ringing in her ears, Diana returned to Brutton Square.