The Splendid Folly

The March wind swirled boisterously down Grellingham Place, catching up particles of grit and scraps of paper on his way and making them a torment to the passers-by, just as though the latter were not already amply occupied in trying to keep their hats on their heads.

But the blustering fellow cared nothing at all about that as he drove rudely against them, slapping their faces and blinding their eyes with eddies of dust; on the contrary, after he had swept forwards like a tornado for a matter of fifty yards or so he paused, as if in search of some fresh devilment, and espied a girl beating her way up the street and carrying a roll of music rather loosely in the crook of her arm. In an instant he had snatched the roll away and sent the sheets spread-eagling up the street, looking like so many big white butterflies as they flapped and whirled deliriously hither and thither.

The girl made an ineffectual grab at them and then dashed in pursuit, while a small greengrocer's boy, whose time was his master's (ergo, his own), joined in the chase with enthusiasm.

Given a high wind, and half-a-dozen loose sheets of music, the elusive quality of the latter seems to be something almost supernatural, not to say diabolical, and the pursuit would probably have been a lengthy one but for the fact that a tall man, who was rapidly advancing from the opposite direction, seeing the girl's predicament, came to her help and headed off the truant sheets. Within a few moments the combined efforts of the girl, the man, and the greengrocer's boy were successful in gathering them together once more, and having tipped the boy, who had entered thoroughly into the spirit of the thing and who was grinning broadly, she turned, laughing and rather breathless, to thank the man.

But the laughter died suddenly away from her lips as she encountered the absolute lack of response in his face. It remained quite grave and unsmiling, exactly as though its owner had not been engaged, only two minutes before, in a wild and undignified chase after half-a-dozen sheets of paper which persisted in pirouetting maddeningly just out of reach.

The face was that of a man of about thirty-five, clean-shaven and fair-skinned, with arresting blue eyes of that peculiar piercing quality which seems to read right into the secret places of one's mind. The features were clear-cut-straight nose, square chin, the mouth rather sternly set, yet with a delicate uplift at its corners that gave it a singularly sweet expression.

The girl faltered.

"Thank you so much," she murmured at last.

The man's deep-set blue eyes swept her from head to foot in a single comprehensive glance.

"I am very glad to have been of service," he said briefly.

With a slight bow he raised his hat and passed on, moving swiftly down the street, leaving her staring surprisedly after him and vaguely feeling that she had been snubbed.

To Diana Quentin this sensation was something of a novelty. As a rule, the men who were brought into contact with her quite obviously acknowledged her distinctly charming personality, but this one had marched away with uncompromising haste and as unconcernedly as though she had been merely the greengrocer's boy, and he had been assisting him in the recovery of some errant Brussels sprouts.

For a moment an amused smile hovered about her lips; then the recollection of her business in Grellingham Place came back to her with a suddenly sobering effect and she hastened on her way up the street, pausing at last at No. 57. She mounted the steps reluctantly, and with a nervous, spasmodic intake of the breath pressed the bell-button.

No one came to answer the door-for the good and sufficient reason that Diana's timid pressure had failed to elicit even the faintest sound-and its four blank brown panels seemed to stare at her forbiddingly. She stared back at them, her heart sinking ever lower and lower the while, for behind those repellent portals dwelt the great man whose "Yea" or "Nay" meant so much to her-Carlo Baroni, the famous teacher of singing, whose verdict upon any voice was one from which there could be no appeal.

Diana wondered how many other aspirants to fame had lingered like herself upon that doorstep, their hearts beating high with hope, only to descend the white-washed steps a brief hour later with the knowledge that from the standpoint of the musical profession their voices were useless for all practical purposes, and with their pockets lighter by two guineas, the maestro's fee for an opinion.

The wind swept up the street again and Diana shivered, her teeth chattering partly with cold but even more with nervousness. This was a bad preparation for the coming interview, and with an irritation born of despair she pressed the bell-button to such good purpose that she could hear footsteps approaching, almost before the trill of the bell had vibrated into silence.

An irreproachable man-servant, with the face of a sphinx, opened the door.

Diana tried to speak, failed, then, moistening her lips, jerked out the words:-

"Signor Baroni?"

"Have you an appointment?" came the relentless inquiry, and Diana could well imagine how inexorably the greatly daring who had come on chance would be turned away.

"Yes-oh, yes," she stammered. "For three o'clock-Miss Diana Quentin."

"Come this way, please." The man stood aside for her to enter, and a minute later she found herself following him through a narrow hall to the door of a room whence issued the sound of a softly-played pianoforte accompaniment.

The sphinx-like one threw open the door and announced her name, and with quaking knees she entered.

The room was a large one. At its further end stood a grand piano, so placed that whoever was playing commanded a full view of the remainder of the room, and at this moment the piano-stool was occupied by Signor Baroni himself, evidently in the midst of giving a lesson to a young man who was standing at his elbow. He was by no means typically Italian in appearance; indeed, his big frame and finely-shaped head with its massive, Beethoven brow reminded one forcibly of the fact that his mother had been of German origin. But the heavy-lidded, prominent eyes, neither brown nor hazel but a mixture of the two, and the sallow skin and long, mobile lips-these were unmistakably Italian. The nose was slightly Jewish in its dominating quality, and the hair that was tossed back over his head and descended to the edge of his collar with true musicianly luxuriance was grizzled by sixty years of strenuous life. It would seem that God had taken an Italian, a German, and a Jew, and out of them welded a surpassing genius.

Baroni nodded casually towards Diana, and, still continuing to play with one hand, gestured towards an easy-chair with the other.

"How do you do? Will you sit down, please," he said, speaking with a strong, foreign accent, and then apparently forgot all about her.

"Now"-he turned to the young man whose lesson her entry had interrupted-"we will haf this through once more. Bee-gin, please: 'In all humility I worship thee.'"

Obediently the young man opened his mouth, and in a magnificent baritone voice declaimed that reverently, and from a great way off, he ventured to worship at his beloved's shrine, while Diana listened spell-bound.

If this were the only sort of voice Baroni condescended to train, what chance had she? And the young man's singing seemed so finished, the fervour of his passion was so vehemently rendered, that she humbly wondered that there still remained anything for him to learn. It was almost like listening to a professional.

Quite suddenly Baroni dropped his hands from the piano and surveyed the singer with such an eloquent mixture of disgust and bitter contempt in his extraordinarily expressive eyes that Diana positively jumped.

"Ach! So that is your idea of a humble suitor, is it?" he said, and though he never raised his voice above the rather husky, whispering tones that seemed habitual to him, it cut like a lash. Later, Diana was to learn that Baroni's most scathing criticisms and most furious reproofs were always delivered in a low, half-whispering tone that fairly seared the victim. "That is your idea, then-to shout, and yell, and bellow your love like a caged bull? When will you learn that music is not noise, and that love-love"-and the odd, husky voice thrilled suddenly to a note as soft and tender as the cooing of a wood-pigeon-"can be expressed piano-ah, but pianissimo-as well as by blowing great blasts of sound from those leathern bellows which you call your lungs?"

The too-forceful baritone stood abashed, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. With a swift motion Baroni swept up the music from the piano and shovelled it pell-mell into the young man's arms.

"Oh, go away, go away!" he said impatiently. "You are a voice-just a voice-and nothing more. You will nevaire be an artist!" And he turned his back on him.

Very dejectedly the young man made his way towards the door, whilst Diana, overcome with sympathy and horror at his abrupt dismissal, could hardly refrain from rushing forward to intercede for him.

And then, to her intense amazement, Baroni whisked suddenly round, and following the young man to the door, laid his hand on his shoulder.

"Au revoir, mon brave," he said, with the utmost bonhomie. "Bring the song next time and we will go through it again. But do not be discouraged-no, for there is no need. It will come-it will come. But remember, piano-piano-pianissimo!"

And with a reassuring pat on the shoulder he pushed the young man affectionately through the doorway and closed the door behind him.

So he had not been dismissed in disgrace after all! Diana breathed a sigh of relief, and, looking up, found Signor Baroni regarding her with a large and benevolent smile.

"You theenk I was too severe with him?" he said placidly. "But no. He is like iron, that young man; he wants hammer-blows."

"I think he got them," replied Diana crisply, and then stopped, aghast at her own temerity. She glanced anxiously at Baroni to see if he had resented her remark, only to find him surveying her with a radiant smile and looking exactly like a large, pleased child.

"We shall get on, the one with the other," he observed contentedly. "Yes, we shall get on. And now-who are you? I do not remember names"-with a terrific roll of his R's-"but you haf a very pree-ty face-and I never forget a pree-ty face."

"I'm-I'm Diana Quentin," she blurted out, nervousness once more overpowering her as she realised that the moment of her ordeal was approaching. "I've come to have my voice tried."

Baroni picked up a memorandum book from his table, turning over the pages till he came to her name.

"Ach! I remember now. Miss Waghorne-my old pupil sent you. She has been teaching you, isn't it so?"

Diana nodded.

"Yes, I've had a few lessons from her, and she hoped that possibly you would take me as a pupil."

It was out at last-the proposal which now, in the actual presence of the great man himself, seemed nothing less than a piece of stupendous presumption.

Signor Baroni's eyes roamed inquiringly over the face and figure of the girl before him-quite possibly querying as to whether or no she possessed the requisite physique for a singer. Nevertheless, the great master was by no means proof against the argument of a pretty face. There was a story told of him that, on one occasion, a girl with an exceptionally fine voice had been brought to him, some wealthy patroness having promised to defray the expenses of her training if Baroni would accept her as a pupil. Unfortunately, the girl was distinctly plain, with a quite uninteresting plainness of the pasty, podgy description, and after he had heard her sing, the maestro, first dismissing her from the room, had turned to the lady who was prepared to stand sponsor for her, and had said, with an inimitable shrug of his massive shoulders:-

"The voice-it is all right. But the girl-heavens, madame, she is of an ugliness! And I cannot teach ugly people. She has the face of a peeg-please take her away."

But there was little fear that a similar fate would befall Diana. Her figure, though slight with the slenderness of immaturity, was built on the right lines, and her young, eager face, in its frame of raven hair, was as vivid as a flower-its clear pallor serving but to emphasise the beauty of the straight, dark brows and of the scarlet mouth with its ridiculously short upper-lip. Her eyes were of that peculiarly light grey which, when accompanied, as hers were, by thick black lashes, gives an almost startling impression each time the lids are lifted, an odd suggestion of inner radiance that was vividly arresting.

An intense vitality, a curious shy charm, the sensitiveness inseparable from the artist nature-all these, and more, Baroni's experienced eye read in Diana's upturned face, but it yet remained for him to test the quality of her vocal organs.

"Well, we shall see," he said non-committally. "I do not take many pupils."

Diana's heart sank yet a little lower, and she felt almost tempted to seek refuge in immediate flight rather than remain to face the inevitable dismissal that she guessed would be her portion.

Baroni, however, put a summary stop to any such wild notions by turning on her with the lightning-like change of mood which she came afterwards to know as characteristic of him.

"You haf brought some songs?" He held out his hand. "Good. Let me see them."

He glanced swiftly through the roll of music which she tendered.

"This one-we will try this. Now"-seating himself at the piano-"open your mouth, little nightingale, and sing."

Softly he played the opening bars of the prelude to the song, and Diana watched fascinatedly while he made the notes speak, and sing, and melt into each other with his short stumpy fingers that looked as though they and music would have little enough in common.

"Now then. Bee-gin."

And Diana began. But she was so nervous that she felt as though her throat had suddenly closed up, and only a faint, quavering note issued from her lips, breaking off abruptly in a hoarse croak.

Baroni stopped playing.

"Tchut! she is frightened," he said, and laid an encouraging hand on her shoulder. "But do not be frightened, my dear. You haf a pree-ty face; if your voice is as pree-ty as your face you need not haf fear."

Diana was furious with herself for failing at the critical moment, and even more angry at Baroni's speech, in which she sensed a suggestion of the tolerance extended to the average drawing-room singer of mediocre powers.

"I don't want to have a pretty voice!" she broke out, passionately. "I wouldn't say thank you for it."

And anger having swallowed up her nervousness, she opened her mouth-and her throat with it this time?-and let out the full powers that were hidden within her nice big larynx.

When she ceased, Baroni closed the open pages of the song, and turning on his stool, regarded her for a moment in silence.

"No," he said at last, dispassionately. "It is certainly not a pree-ty voice."

To Diana's ears there was such a tone of indifference, such an air of utter finality about the brief speech, that she felt she would have been eternally grateful now could she only have passed the low standard demanded by the possession of even a merely "pretty" voice.

"So this is the voice you bring me to cultivate?" continued the maestro. "This that sounds like the rumblings of a subterranean earthquake? Boom! boo-o-om! Like that, nicht wahr?"

Diana crimsoned, and, feeling her knees giving way beneath her, sank into the nearest chair, while Baroni continued to stare at her.

"Then-then you cannot take me as a pupil?" she said faintly.

Apparently he did not hear her, for he asked abruptly:-

"Are you prepared to give up everything-everything in the world for art? She is no easy task-mistress, remember! She will want a great deal of your time, and she will rob you of your pleasures, and for her sake you will haf to take care of your body-to guard your physical health-as though it were the most precious thing on earth. To become a great singer, a great artiste, means a life of self-denial. Are you prepared for this?"

"But-but-" stammered Diana in astonishment. "If my voice is not even pretty-if it is no good-"

"No good?" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet with a rapidity of movement little short of marvellous in a man of his size and bulk. "Gran Dio! No good, did you say? But, my child, you haf a voice of gold-pure gold. In three years of my training it will become the voice of the century. Tchut! No good!"

He pranced nimbly to the door and flung it open.

"Giulia! Giulia!" he shouted, and a minute later a fat, amiable-looking woman, whose likeness to Baroni proclaimed them brother and sister, came hurrying downstairs in answer to his call. "Signora Evanci, my sister," he said, nodding to Diana. "This, Giulia, is a new pupil, and I would haf you hear her voice. It is magnificent-épatant! Open your mouth, little singing-bird, once more. This time we will haf some scales."

Bewildered and excited, Diana sang again, Baroni testing the full compass of her voice until quite suddenly he shut down the lid of the piano.

"It is enough," he said solemnly, and then, turning to Signora Evanci, began talking to her in an excited jumble of English and Italian. Diana caught broken phrases here and there.

"Of a quality superb! . . . And a beeg compass which will grow beeger yet. . . . The contralto of the century, Giulia."

And Signora Evanci smiled and nodded agreement, patting Diana's hand, and reminded Baroni that it was time for his afternoon cup of consommé. She was a comfortable feather-bed of a woman, whose mission in life it seemed to be to fend off from her brother all sharp corners, and to see that he took his food at the proper intervals and changed into the thick underclothing necessitated by the horrible English climate.

"But it will want much training, your voice," continued Baroni, turning once more to Diana. "It is so beeg that it is all over the place-it sounds like a clap of thunder that has lost his way in a back garden." And he smiled indulgently. "To bee-gin with, you will put away all your songs-every one. There will be nothing but exercises for months yet. And you will come for your first lesson on Thursday. Mondays and Thursdays I will teach you, but you must come other days, also, and listen at my lessons. There is much-very much-learned by listening, if one listens with the brain as well as with the ear. Now, little singing-bird, good-bye. I will go with you myself to the door."

The whole thing seemed too impossibly good to be true. Diana felt as if she were in the middle of a beautiful dream from which she might at any moment waken to the disappointing reality of things. Hardly able to believe the evidence of her senses, she found herself once again in the narrow hall, shepherded by the maestro's portly form. As he held the door open for her to pass out into the street, some one ran quickly up the steps, pausing on the topmost.

"Ha, Olga!" exclaimed Baroni, beaming. "You haf returned just too late to hear Mees Quentin. But you will play for her-many times yet." Then, turning to Diana, he added by way of introduction: "This is my accompanist, Mees Lermontof."

Diana received the impression of a thin, satirical face, its unusual pallor picked out by the black brows and hair, of a bitter-looking mouth that hardly troubled itself to smile in salutation, and, above all, of a pair of queer green eyes, which, as the heavy, opaque white lids above them lifted, seemed slowly-and rather contemptuously-to take her in from head to foot.

She bowed, and as Miss Lermontof inclined her head slightly in response, there was a kind of cold aloofness in her bearing-a something defiantly repellent-which filled Diana with a sudden sense of dislike, almost of fear. It was as though the sun had all at once gone behind a cloud.

The Baroni's voice fell on her ears, and the disagreeable tension snapped.

"A rivederci, little singing-bird. On Thursday we will bee-gin."

The door closed on the maestro's benevolently smiling face, and on that other-the dark, satirical face of Olga Lermontof-and Diana found herself once again breasting the March wind as it came roystering up through Grellingham Place.