"
Diana flushed, immediately repentant.
"I'm sorry," she acknowledged frankly. "I was being abominably
inattentive; I was thinking of something else."
The little scene was characteristic of her--unbendingly determined and
obstinate when she thought she was wronged and unjustly treated,
impulsively ready to ask pardon when she saw herself at fault.
Baroni patted her hand affectionately.
"See, my dear, I am a cross-grained, ugly old man, am I not?" he said
placidly.
"Yes, you are," agreed Diana, to the awed amazement of the other two
pupils, at the same time bestowing a radiant smile upon him.
Baroni beamed back at her benevolently.
"So! Thus we agree--we are at one, as master and pupil should be. Is
it not so?"
Diana nodded, amusement in her eyes.
"Then, being agreed, we can continue our lesson. Imagine yourself,
please, to be Delilah, brooding on your vengeance, gloating over what
you are about to accomplish. Can you not picture her to
yourself--beautiful, sinister, like a snake that winds itself about the
body"--his voice fell to a penetrating whisper--"and, in her heart,
dreaming of the triumph that shall bring Samson at last a captive to
destruction?"
Something in the tense excitement of his whispering tones struck an
answering chord within Diana, and oblivious for the moment of all else
except Delilah's passionate thirst for vengeance, she sang with her
whole soul, so that when she ceased, Baroni, in a sudden access of
artistic fervour, leapt from his seat and embraced her rapturously.
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