"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 passion 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.