“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.

“Why, I will, thou most obstinate child”—­suiting the action to the word.  “Because it is true that professors should not throw music at their pupils, no matter”—­maliciously—­“how stupid nor how dull they may be at their lesson.”

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.

“Well done!  That is, true art—­art and intelligence allied to the voice of gold which the good God has given you.”

Absorbed in the music, neither master nor pupil had observed that during the course of the song the door had been softly unlatched from outside and held ajar, and now, just as Diana was somewhat blushingly extricating herself from Baroni’s fervent clasp, it was thrown open and the unseen listener came into the room.

Baroni whirled round and advanced with outstretched hands, his face wreathed in smiles.